ABSTRACT

This book highlights how climate change has affected migration in the Indian subcontinent. Drawing on field research, it argues that extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, cyclones, cloudbursts as well as sea-level rise, desertification and declining crop productivity have shown higher frequency in recent times and have depleted bio-physical diversity and the capacity of the ecosystem to provide food and livelihood security. The volume shows how the socio-economically poor are worst affected in these circumstances and resort to migration to survive.

The essays in the volume study the role of remittances sent by migrants to their families in environmentally fragile zones in providing an important cushion and adaptation capabilities to cope with extreme weather events. The book looks at the socio-economic and political drivers of migration, different forms of mobility, mortality and morbidity levels in the affected population, and discusses mitigation and adaption strategies.

The volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of environment and ecology, migration and diaspora studies, development studies, sociology and social anthropology, governance and public policy, and politics.

chapter 1|17 pages

Migration in the context of climate change

An introduction

chapter 2|25 pages

Climate change, vulnerability and migration in India

Overlapping hotspots

chapter 3|16 pages

Migrating to adapt?

Exploring the climate change, migration and adaptation nexus

chapter 5|19 pages

Institutional response to displacement due to chronic disasters

The art of muddling through

chapter 6|25 pages

Remittances as self-insured life

On migration, flood and conflict in North-Western Pakistan 1

chapter 8|20 pages

Migration in response to environmental change

A risk perception study from Sundarban Biosphere Reserve

chapter 10|19 pages

Climate change, drought and vulnerability

A historical narrative approach to migration from Western Odisha, India

chapter 11|25 pages

Dynamics of distress seasonal migration

A study of a drought-prone Mahabubnagar district in Telangana

chapter 12|23 pages

Seasonal migration from dry climatic zone

A case of rural Maharashtra

chapter 13|23 pages

Migrant ecology

chapter 14|16 pages

Spaces of recognition of climate migrants in India

Question of rights and responsibilities