Integrating Rural Livelihoods and Community Interaction into Migration and Environment Research: A Conceptual Framework of Rural Out-Migration and the Environment in Developing Countries

Abstract

This article presents a conceptual framework linking perspectives from migration and environment with rural livelihoods and interactional community research in the context of rural out-migration and environmental changes in developing countries. Household livelihoods and community interaction comprise two core mediating factors between rural out-migration and rural environmental outcomes. Developing an interdisciplinary conceptual framework is an important way to advance migration and environment research that is built on knowledge from a variety of disciplines. By building linkages across different research fields, our conceptual framework provides an overall picture of the relevant mechanisms through which out-migration affects the rural environment. The framework has implications for theory, methodology, and rural environment and development policy.

Keywords:

• household livelihoods
• interactional capacity
• mediating factors
• rural environment
• rural migration

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a Doctoral Dissertation Improvement grant from the Geography and Spatial Sciences Program of the National Science Foundation, and dissertation research funds from the Worldwide Universities Network, the Rural Sociological Society, and the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the Rural Sociological Society and received the Natural Resources Research Group Student Paper Award. Thoughtful comments from Dr. Jeffrey Dawson, Dr. Futing Liao, Dr. Stephen Gasteyer, three anonymous reviewers, and the journal editor are sincerely appreciated.

Notes

STIRPAT is the acronym of STochastic estimation of Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology.