ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book draws attention to historical and contemporary structures, policies, and practices that create differentiated social, gender, and racialized landscapes of risk and how these landscapes intersect with the complex experiences of communities and individuals confronted with planned retreat as a climate adaptation strategy. It offers a “thick analysis” of recognition justice by showing how power, race, class, and language shape who leads, manages, and experiences relocation. The book then focuses on the injustices of climate-induced risk in refugee camps. Based on case studies in Hatteras Island, North Carolina, and Miami-Dade County, Florida, it also demonstrates the mutability of land resulting from natural undulation and urbanization processes. Focusing on three communities in the Lower Shire Valley of Malawi, the book illustrates how a government-labeled “no-go-zone” and disinvestment invigorated people to fight against relocation rather than persuade them to leave.
