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The interaction between environmental change and human mobility is attracting global attention, both in policy circles and in the contemporary literature. This introductory essay proposes using the concept of pluralism to explore the multi-dimensional relationship between climate change and migration and to advance new perspectives and concepts to interpret the emerging theory of adaptive migration. The papers included in this themed section cover diverse issues in this area of research by focusing on the contemporary debate about the 'migration-as-adaptation strategy'. The papers address six key areas: the role of law in dealing with climate-induced migration, the category of place related to the community of origin and destination, the theme of climate justice and rights, the contribution of international organisations in framing the migration-as-adaptation strategy, adaptive measures developed in the Maldives, and seasonal nomadism in the East Sudan. All are quite different, but all converge in their emphasis on the role of the individual, the migrant, and on whether and how state responses are adequate in the progressive concordance between adaptation and individual capability. This introduction raises a set of salient questions that might catalyse multiple new research trajectories over the coming years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration continues to be pictured in public debates as a failure to adapt to changes, while policymakers explore adaptation measures as a means to reduce migration pressures, and scholars have contended that migration processes exist within a larger framework of strategies for adapting to damaging climate change impacts. So what are the impacts of migration on the adaptive capacities and vulnerabilities of the origin and host communities, as well as of the migrants themselves? The objective of this conceptual and methodological paper is to identify possible different options for research into the consequences of migration for adaptation. The first section reviews how the migration-adaptation nexus has been addressed in the literature, confirming the potential of human mobility to build resilience and to increase adaptive capacities within complex and potentially maladaptive processes. The next section explores the potential impacts of migration that need to be studied, from three main vantage points: the migrants themselves, the community of origin, and the community of destination. A final section weighs the possible approaches and suggests solutions that may exist to advance empirical study of the migration-adaptation area nexus, so that it can address not just the causes, but also the consequences of migration in the context of environmental changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the face of climate change, political and policy discussion is often framed by a concern with causal impacts on the societal status quo. Illustrated with the case study of the literature and debate on the relationship between climate change and migration, this paper argues that the search for causal understanding can be a blind alley for substantive research, and it is imperative for the research community to be aware of this possibility. To this end, the paper presents a tripartite heuristic framework, using the logic of an 'epidemiology', which allows such blind alleys to be identified, explained and collapsed. It goes on to then outline what remains for research in light of such a critique - in general, in terms of human geography and with specific regard to 'forced migration' scholarship and 'migration studies'. The core admonition is that potentially more is lost than gained when discussion and debate in both academic and policy contexts fails to begin by reflexively interrogating the specific forms of causal reasoning that are implicit in any attempt to substantively analyse the impact of climate change on any particular subjectively defined dependent societal variable, such as 'migration'. Failing to do so results not only in the waste of finite research resources, but also allows currency to accrue to otherwise equivocal constructs, thereby leaving them ripe for politically expedient manipulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical inquiry into the relationship between natural hazards and disasters has raised pressing questions about the uneven exposure and resilience of different social groups. This paper argues that human-induced climate change and its implication in a range of extreme events extends and complicates the pursuit of justice in the context of differentiated vulnerability to hazards. But the challenge of living with natural hazards can provoke and inspire the idea of global environmental justice in other ways. Sustained consideration of the unpredictability of physical environments draws us into engagement with the temporality and spatiality of earth processes. It points to the ways that any extended place-based inhabitation must involve demanding accommodations to environmental uncertainty - raising questions about how to 'do justice' to these achievements. Confronting forms of hardship that are triggered by the dynamics of the earth itself can also be taken as a prompt to conceive of environmental justice not only in regard to what others deserve or are entitled to, but in terms of what might be offered simply in response to their suffering. In this way, the paper proposes, thinking through natural hazard and disaster might play a part in re-imagining the very concept of environmental justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]