21064 - Environment, Climate Change, and Mobility

Description

This panel examines the complex and evolving intersections between climate change, environmental transformations, and human mobility. The papers in this session investigate how climate-related displacement is framed, understood, and experienced across diverse contexts, from U.S. cities preparing for climate migrants to rural communities navigating post-disaster mobility. Several papers explore how environmental factors shape migration and resettlement pathways, including a study of climate migration narratives in self-proclaimed “climate haven” states, an analysis of disaster discourses following New Mexico’s Calf Canyon-Hermit’s Peak Fire, and an investigation into the role of extreme heat in reshaping immigrant incorporation among Vietnamese youth in Arizona. Other papers challenge conventional definitions of climate migration, highlighting how newcomer youth in Canada reinterpret land and displacement beyond narrow environmental frames and how migration patterns in Honduras reveal distinct network-driven and climate-driven pathways for internal and international mobility. Together, these papers expand our understanding of climate mobility beyond displacement and crisis narratives, foregrounding the role of governance, social networks, and embodied experiences in shaping mobility under climate change. This session contributes to emerging interdisciplinary scholarship on environmental migration, climate justice, and the politics of mobility in an era of ecological disruption.

Sub Unit

• Section on International Migration / Environment, Climate Change, and the Management of Mobility

Presider

• Kathryn McConnell, University of British Columbia

Individual Presentations

• Everybody Moves: Climate, Networks, and Mobility in Honduran Communities - Loring J. Thomas, Princeton University; Ziang Xu, Yale University; Vahid Satarifard, Yale University; Michael Oppenheimer, Princeton University; Nicholas A Christakis, Yale University

• It’s Too Hot to Incorporate! Climate Change and Immigrant Incorporation in the Valley of the Suns - Andrew N. Le, Arizona State University-Tempe

• Reimagining Climate Migration: Discursive and Embodied Reorientations to Land Through Gardening with Newcomer Youth of Colour - Riann Lognon, University of Calgary; Pallavi Banerjee, University of Calgary; Chetna Khandelwal, University of Calgary; Megha Sanyal, University of Calgary; Santanu Dutta, University of Calgary; Pratim Sengupta, Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary

• Residential Mobility and Community Recovery After Disasters Amidst Changing Climates: The Case of Northern New Mexico - Daniel Jenks, University of Pennsylvania

• The Narrative of Safety and Resilience: How Climate Havens Frame Efforts to Accommodate Climate Migrants - Elizabeth Kiester, Hood College; Saleh Ahmed, Michigan State University; Elizabeth Eklund, Purdue University

Discussant

• Kathryn McConnell, University of British Columbia

Session Organizer

• Jake Watson, University of California-San Diego