Climate refugees: A useful concept? Towards an alternative vocabulary of ecological displacement
| Published date | 01 May 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/02633957221077257 |
| Author | Lydia Ayame Hiraide |
| Date | 01 May 2023 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/02633957221077257
Politics
2023, Vol. 43(2) 267 –282
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/02633957221077257
journals.sagepub.com/home/pol
Climate refugees: A useful
concept? Towards an
alternative vocabulary of
ecological displacement
Lydia Ayame Hiraide
Goldsmiths, University of London, UK
Abstract
Against the background of climate scepticism and raging anti-immigrant sentiments across Europe,
the politics of climate change and the politics of migration are fraught with tension. The two
converge over discussions about ‘climate refugees’. But what merit does the term ‘climate
refugee’ have, and are there potential problems associated with it? This article pays attention
to how racialised discourses underwrite the concept of climate refugees in ways that further
exclude already marginalised populations. In place of ‘climate refugees’, it proposes ‘ecological
displacement’ as a notion which stresses how and why people are displaced within or across
borders. While, indeed, anthropogenic climate change is a real threat to the livelihoods of humans
(among other species), it is not the only environmental driver of displacement. By using the term
‘ecology’, this article argues that we allow for a description which encompasses other potential
displacement drivers beyond climate change, such as volcanic eruptions, landslides, and political
violence. Citing ‘displacement’ makes the term available to populations who are displaced by
damaged ecologies both within and across borders, in and outside of Europe. The notion of
‘ecological displacement’ and ‘ecologically displaced people’ tries to rehumanise those carrying the
heaviest social and climate burdens on a burning planet.
Keywords
climate change, discourses, language, migration, refugees
Received: 22nd October 2021; Revised version received: 22nd December 2021; Accepted: 5th January 2022
Introduction
The multiple causes of displacement and migration are often difficult to disentangle.
Increasingly, climate change and environmental degradation directly cause or compound
with other factors to create or exacerbate conditions that cause people to flee their
Corresponding author:
Lydia Ayame Hiraide, Goldsmiths, University of London, 41 Lewisham Way, New Cross, London SE14
6NW, UK.
Email: lhira001@gold.ac.uk
1077257POL0010.1177/02633957221077257PoliticsHiraide
research-article2022
Special Issue: Race & Climate Change
268 Politics 43(2)
homelands (UNHCR, 2021). As climate change and environmental degradation emerge
as new drivers of migration and displacement, so too do new vocabularies and discourses,
such as the notion of the ‘climate refugee’ – a term used to describe those migrating
because of environmental changes to their habitats.
In recent years, the spectre of the climate refugee has begun to haunt European politics.
Amid a presence of climate scepticism (Almiron et al., 2020; Labohm, 2012) and raging
anti-immigrant sentiments in Europe (Carastathis, 2015; Czaika and Lillo, 2018; da Silva
Rebelo et al., 2020; McLaren and Johnson, 2007; Rustenbach, 2010; Siebers and Dennissen,
2014), the politics of changing environments and human migration are fraught with ten-
sion. The European focus on climate refugees marks the site at which racialised anxieties
around climate change and migration onto the continent converge in deeply challenging,
and often problematic, ways (Baldwin, 2013). But what are the implications of a notion
such as that of the climate refugee? And crucially, is it a concept that can be put to good
use in the genuine interests of those it attempts to describe? These are the conceptual ques-
tions which frame the argument of this article, for the ways that we define the concept and
understand its potential usages are crucial for how public opinion and government policies
(which interact significantly in most European countries) are constructed.
In this article, I develop a position in favour of an alternative framework of ‘ecological
displacement’, arguing that the latter might offer us different, more inclusive possibilities
of talking about how and why people are displaced within and across borders beyond the
heavy burdens of the racialised stigma attached to the notion of the climate refugee. The
notion of the (climate) refugee has often been misused, misshapen, and stigmatised to an
extent in Europe which seems difficult to rescript. As Ben Wisner argues, ‘[w]ords matter,
and terms such as “environmental refugee” and “climate migrant” have been used in
contexts that could accidentally [and, even, consciously] give fuel to xenophobia and
racism’ (cited in Oliver-Smith, 2012: 1026). Thus, the purpose and contribution of this
article are to add to existing efforts to denaturalise and counter the racialised language
used to bolster xenophobic narratives across Europe while proposing the alternative
notion of ‘ecological displacement’. Thus, this article moves to examine some of the
political questions which accompany the challenges in giving a precise definition to the
term ‘climate refugee’. It studies how exclusionary racialised discourses undergird
the concept of climate refugees to the detriment of already marginalised populations.
Building on these observations, I articulate ecological displacement as an alternative
vocabulary to that of climate refugees.
The uses of the term ‘climate refugee’ are far and wide-ranging (as we will see below),
but the term itself remains a site of contestation with varying stances on the extent to
which it is useful. This article reflects on some of the political and analytical merits and
pitfalls of the notion of ‘climate refugee’ as a term, exploring and responding to some of
the problematics it gives rise to. Thus, the following discussion engages with the extant
scholarship which deals with some of the definitional difficulties around the term ‘cli-
mate refugee’. It therefore takes a language-based, textual intervention in debates sur-
rounding migration and climate change or environmental degradation. The latter rests on
an understanding of language as a site of struggle at which violence can be produced,
facilitated, and legitimised (Corsevski, 1998; Gay, 1997, 2018; Orwell, 2003; Senghor,
1966; Žižek, 2016), whether direct (e.g. inciting physical harm) or structural (e.g. policy
framings and decisions which harm particular groups; Galtung, 1969, 1990). As anti-
colonial movements and postcolonial scholarship show us, both structural domination
and bottom-up resistance to oppression also take place on the terrain of language. People
Get this document and AI-powered insights with a free trial of vLex and Vincent AI
Get Started for FreeStart Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
