When and how does someone living through climate crisis decide to migrate? This article theorizes climate migration through an ethnographic case study from northeastern Colombia during a period of prolonged drought.
Results demonstrate that migration decisions in the context of climate crisis are not single events, but part of a sequence of repeated choices to stay or leave. The number of previous decisions to stay shapes the likelihood of migration, alters the severity of climate impacts needed to trigger movement, and leads to different categories of migrants. These decisions are influenced by households’ material and social resources, as well as their subjective experiences of time under climate stress.
The study also identifies two main types of climate migrants – adaptive migrants and distress migrants – and also highlights individual strategic migrants as a strategy for household immobility.
Overall, it argues for a sequential model of climate migration that recognizes multiple pathways and outcomes of mobility and immobility.
Learn more about this study here: https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spaf027
Reference
Brianna Castro, Becoming a Climate Migrant: Climate Change and Sequential Migration Decision-Making, Social Problems, 2025