The Moral Economy of Retreat: A Nationwide Qualitative Study of Flood-Prone Homeowners on the Move

• In Event: Environmental Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 6: Migration, Mobility, and Retreat

Abstract

In the contiguous US, 14.6 million properties are at “substantial flood risk,” far greater than official estimates. Managed retreat, through the form of locally administered buyouts, has emerged as a strategy to mitigate future risk and cost to both flood-prone homeowners and the government. Existing research has focused on how buyouts work as a property acquisition program for the government, but as a climate relocation program for participants. Yet, the relational dynamic between retreating homeowners and those who might potentially follow behind them into harm’s way has garnered little attention. This study builds from and advances prior work by sociologist Rebecca Elliott on the moral economy of climate change and the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). This perspective moves beyond viewing threatened homes as commodified properties to be acquired and then demolished at a “fair market” value to also conceptualizing related transactions as part of a moral, or social, countermove to the business-as-usual transferring of risky homes to others. This study uses a multi-phase “geographically purposive” sampling design from a larger project to conduct semi-structured interviews with buyout participants in zones of retreat nationwide. I use a disproportionate stratified design by first identifying residents nationwide (N~40,000) and then utilizing GIS and consumer trace data to identify neighbors living within a half-mile of these retreat zones. Preliminary results from more than 20 interviews (and counting) indicate that homeowners do narrative their participation in the home buyout program through a moral framework, citing the unfairness of transferring known climate risk to a generalized other resident. Implications for sociological understanding of the “climate-housing” nexus [will be discussed] upon study completion in time for presentation at the 2026 ASA annual meeting.

Author

• Stephen Joseph Brown, Rice University