La migrazione climatica: analisi di un concetto conteso - Climate migration: Analysis of a disputed concept
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1473/ea.v14i1.531Parole chiave:
Climate migration, Discourse, Mobilities, DecolonialAbstract
This paper critically examines the category of «climate migration» through the reconstruction of the formation of the climate change–human mobility nexus. The article discusses how the category conceptually evolved from an empirically framed phenomenon into a hegemonic discursive relation shaped by racializing, biopolitical, and neoliberal logics. Recent decolonial contributions further destabilize the empirical coherence of the nexus by tactically re-signifying its language of mobility, reconnecting climate change and vulnerabilities to the structures underpinning the racial, patriarchal and ecocidal capitalistic economy born within Colonialism. The paper ultimately argues that climate migration as a distinct analytical and policy category continues to reproduce ethnocentric and technocratic rationales. Its critical potential lies instead in its conceptual collapse, opening the discursive field to alternative imaginaries of social justice and socioecological interdependency.
Riferimenti bibliografici
Baldwin A. 2013, Racialisation and the figure of the climate-change migrant, «Environment and Planning A», 45: 1474-1490.
–– 2017, Post-colonial futures: Climate, Race and the Yet-To-Come, «Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment», 24 (2): 292-305.
Baldwin A., Bettini G. (ed.) 2017, Life adrift. Climate Change, Migration, Critique, London, New York: Rowman & Littlefield International.
Bates D. C. 2002, Environmental refugees? Classifying human migrations caused by environmental change, «Population and Environment», 23 (5): 465-477.
Bettini G. 2013a, Climatised Moves: Climate-induced Migration and the Politics of Environmental Discourse, Lund University.
–– 2013b, (In)convenient convergences: «Climate refugees», apocalyptic discourses and the depoliticization of the debate on climate-induced migration, in Methmann C., Rothe D., Stephan B. (ed.) 2013, Interpretive approaches to global climate governance. (De)constructing the greenhouse, London-New York, Routledge: 122-136.
–– 2014, Climate migration as an adaptation strategy: de-securitizing climate-induced migration, or making the unruly governable?, «Critical Studies on Security», 2 (2): 180-195.
Black R. 2001, Environmental refugees: myth or reality?, Brighton: UNHCR.
Biermann F., Boas I. 2008, Protecting Climate Refugees: The Case for a Global Protocol, «Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development», 50 (6): 8-17.
Black R. et al. 2011a, The effect of environmental change on human migration, «Global Environmental Change», 21 (1): 3-11.
Black R. et al. 2011b, Climate change: Migration as adaptation, «Nature», 478: 447-449.
Felli R. 2012, Managing Climate Insecurity by Ensuring Continuous Capital Accumulation:‘Climate Refugees’ and ‘Climate Migrants’, «New Political Economy», 18 (3): 337-363.
Foucault M. 2016, Le parole e le cose, Milano: BUR (I ed. 1966).
Giuliani G. 2021, Monsters, Catastrophes and the Anthropocene: A Postcolonial Critique, London: Routledge.
Keane D. 2004, The Environmental Causes and Consequences of Migration: A Search for the Meaning of “Environmental Refugees”, «Georgetown International Environmental Law Review», 16 (2): 209-223.
Lévi-Strauss C. 2002, Antropologia Strutturale. Dai sistemi del linguaggio alle società umane, Milano: Net (I ed. 1958).
Mayer B. 2013, Constructing “Climate Migration” as a Global Governance Issue: Essential Flaws in the Contemporary Literature, «McGill Journal of Sustainable Development Law», 9 (1): 87-117.
McAdam J. 2012, Climate Change, Forced Migration, and International Law, Oxford: Oxford University press.
McLeman R., Smit B. 2006, Migration as adaptation to climate change, «Climatic Change», 76: 31-53.
Morrissey J. 2012, Rethinking the «debate on environmental refugees»: from ‘maximilists and minimalists’ to ‘proponents and critics’, «Journal of Political Ecology», 19: 36-49.
Myers N. 1993, Environmental Refugees in a Globally Warmed World: Estimating the scope o what could well become a prominent international phenomenon, «BioScience», 43(11): 752-761.
–– 2002, Environmental refugees: a growing phenomenon of the 21st Century, «Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences», 357 (1420): 609-613.
Nash S. L. 2018, Knowing Human Mobility in the Context of Climate Change: The Self Perpetuating Circle of Research, Policy, and Knowledge Production, «Movements: Journal for Critical Migration and Border Regime Studies», 4 (1): 67-81.
Nicholson C. T. M. 2014, Climate change and the politics of causal reasoning: the case of climate change and migration, «The Geographical Journal», 180 (2): 151-160.
–– 2017, ‘Climate-induced migration’: ways forward in the face of an intrinsically equivocal concept in Mayer B, Crépau F. (ed.) 2017, Research Handbook on Climate Change, Migration and the Law, Cheltenham-Northampton: Edward Elgar Publishing, 9-66.
Piguet E. 2010, Linking climate change, environmental degradation, and migration: a methodological overview, «Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change», 1 (4): 517-524.
–– 2013, From «Primitive Migration» to «Climate Refugees»: The Curious Fate of the Natural Environment in Migration Studies, «Annals of the Association of American Geographers», 103 (1): 148-162.
–– 2022, Linking climate change, environmental degradation, and migration: An update after 10 years, «Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change» 13 (1), 1-16.
Piguet E., Pécoud A., de Gouchteneire P. 2011, Migration and climate change: an overview, «Refugee Survey Quarterly», 30 (3): 1-23.
Suhrke A. 1994, Environmental degradation and population flows, «Journal of International Affairs», 47 (2): 473-496.
Sheller M. 2023, Mobility justice after climate coloniality: mobile commoning as a relational ethics of care, «Australian Geographer», 54 (1):1-16.
Tacoli C. 2009, Crisis or adaptation? Migration and climate change in a context of high mobility. «Environment & Urbanization», 21 (2): 513-525.
The Government Office for Science 2011, Foresight: Migration and Global Environmnental Change 2011, London: The Government Office for Science.
UNEP 1985, Environmental Refugees, Nairobi: United Nations Environment Programme.
Vergès F. 2017, Racial Capitalocene in Johnson G. T., Lubin A. (ed.) 2017, Futures of Black Radicalism, London-New York: Verso, 72-82.
Whyte K., Talley J. L., Gibson J. D. 2019, Indigenous mobility traditions, colonialism, and the Anthropocene, «Mobilities», 14 (3): 319-335.
Wiegel H., Boas I., Warner J. 2019, A mobilities perspective on migration in the context of environmental change, «WIREs Climate Change», 10 (6): 1-9.
WorldWatch Institute 1988, Environmental refugees: A yardstick of habitability, Washington D. C.: WorldWatch Institute.
Pubblicato
Come citare
Fascicolo
Sezione
Licenza
Copyright (c) 2026 Lucrezia Travella
TQuesto lavoro è fornito con la licenza Creative Commons Attribuzione 4.0 Internazionale.
Gli autori mantengono i diritti sulla loro opera e cedono alla rivista il diritto di prima pubblicazione dell'opera, contemporaneamente licenziata sotto una Licenza Creative Commons - Attribuzione che permette ad altri di condividere l'opera indicando la paternità intellettuale e la prima pubblicazione su questa rivista.
Gli autori possono diffondere la loro opera online (es. in repository istituzionali o nel loro sito web) prima e durante il processo di submission, poiché può portare a scambi produttivi e aumentare le citazioni dell'opera pubblicata (Vedi The Effect of Open Access).
