The Socio-Natural Question: How Climate Change Adds to Social Inequalities

ABSTRACT

This article traces two generations of scholarship in the climate change-migration debate, which often focus on ‘resilience’ of migrants. The author finds the concept of resilience is deeply biased toward blaming the victims (migrants) and argues that it should be discarded. Moreover, he claims that the debates on climate change and forced migration are based on the idea that nature and society/culture can be neatly separated. Considering this as a false dichotomy, the author points out the need for a new generation of scholarship, which should devote more attention to how responses to climate change (including migration as adaptation) are implicated in reproducing existing social inequalities.

KEYWORDS:

• Social stratification
• social inequalities
• climate change
• environmental migration
• forced migration

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Thomas Faist is a Professor in Sociology of Transnationalization, Development & Migration at the University of Bielefeld. Faist held several guest professorships, including at Malmö University in Sweden and at the University of Toronto in Canada. His research focuses on international migration, integration of ethnic and national minorities, citizenship, social policy and development policy. Faist has been involved in several research projects, including projects of the German Research Foundation and the European Union, published numerous scientific articles, and is the author of several books and volumes on issues related to migration, transnational social space and social inequalities among others.