Syllabus Bank
Climate displacement is already a reality, with hundreds of thousands of people internally displaced and others crossing international borders. This will only grow over the coming decades. Climate migration is not new, and it shares many common features with other forms of migration, but in the current moment it presents unique challenges given the pervasiveness of environmental disruption.
We will grapple with this condition in two complementary parts of the seminar. We will explore foundations in the field through readings and discussion of major topics including how the framing of climate migration affects current debates, the spectrum of relocation from immobility to voluntary relocation, whether and how migration serves as adaptation, and planning for receiving communities.
We will put these concepts into practice through a project for the Climigration Network (CN), examining opportunities for Indigenous reclamation of land ownership, stewardship, or management (land back) to serve climate-related relocation. Students will research and synthesize domestic and international case studies of land back and analyze implications for climate migration, in dialogue with CN and experts in the field. For the final project, students will create a professional quality presentation recommending strategic opportunities for land back and relocation which CN and their partners can use as a resource.
Through the two complementary parts of the course, students will have an opportunity to work at the cutting-edge of practice while engaging thoughtfully with the full complexity of underlying climate migration challenges.