Migration, Climate and Local Democracy in Africa: Political Representation under a Changing Sky
Principal Investigators: Papa Faye (Centre d’Action pour le Développement et la Recherche en Afrique – CADRE), Jesse Ribot (American University), and Matthew Turner (University of Wisconsin, Madison)
This research project examines local government’s role – the function of political representation – in generating or reducing the current trends in which vulnerable people are migrating out of areas where climate variability is viewed as a driver of outmigration. The project is based on fieldwork in the Tambacounda region of Senegal and the Dantiandou and Say regions of Niger. Senegal and Niger are two countries with elected local government that can provide deeply needed lessons for democratic local authorities wherever climate-related security and migration pressures are at play. This project is funded by the International Center for Local Democracy. This project is closely related to and builds on the Vulnerability and Climate Change Research Projects.
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Read more about this project here.
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Read an interview with Jesse Ribot on this project here.
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See 3-minute video, “Climate Refugees?” developed from this project here.
Note that publications listed below will also be found under other projects since publications have been matched to as many projects as they are relevant to. Also, please note that the publications listed on the Vulnerability and Climate Change Research page are relevant to understanding vulnerability related to migration.
“Of all specific liberties which may come into our minds when we hear the word ‘freedom’, freedom of movement is historically the oldest and also the most elementary. Being able to depart from where we will is the prototypical gesture of being free, as limitation of freedom of movement has from time immemorial been the precondition for enslavement.” Hannah Arendt 1955:9
Working Papers
Related Documents
Book Chapter
Book Chapter
Ribot, Jesse. 2023. “Access Failure: Deep Explanation of Climate-Related Crises,” Chapter in Oxford University Press Handbook on Land Politics, Jun Borras and Jennifer Franco (eds.). https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197618646.001.0001
BOOKS & SPECIAL ISSUES
BOOKS & SPECIAL ISSUES
Ribot, Jesse. 2019. “Social Causality of our Common Climate Crisis: Toward a Sociodicy for the Anthropocene,” Ch. 2, pp. 35-53 in Tobias Haller, Thomas Breu, Tine De Moor, Christian Rohr and Heinzpeter Znoj (eds.) The Commons in a Glocal World: Global Connections and Local Responses. London: Routledge.