Environmental Non-Migration

Reviews / Votes

"Through skillful integration of personal narratives and the results of qualitative scholarship, Dr. Mallick has crafted a powerful overview of not moving as strategy in the face of environmental stress and change. He eloquently builds the argument that "non-migration" is not simply the absence of migration. Instead, decision-making around not moving is filled with nuance and complexities. A comprehensive bibliography provides an excellent overview of relevant scholarship crossing a variety of disciplines, including archival work that grounds the argument of "non-migration as adaptation" within human history. For centuries, some populations have seen leaving cherished places as more challenging than facing environmental challenges. Environmental Non-Migration: Rethinking Sustainable Solutions for Climate-Induced Challenges also provides an important roadmap for policymakers to support enhanced resilience so that exposed populations can realize their ambitions to stay in place."

Lori M. Hunter, Ph.D. Director, Institute of Behavioral Science, Professor, Department of Sociology, Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado Boulder, USA

"Bishawjit Mallick brings a distinctive and valuable new perspective to the challenge of environmental migration with his analysis of non-migration as an active choice that people make in the face of environmental stress. Prior work has largely treated remaining in one's community of origin as a passive, default choice, with migration away from that community as an active choice that is represented as a combination of push and pull factors. Mallick's novel perspective begins with the empirical observation of how strongly people feel rooted in their home community, and how actively they strive to remain in that community, even in the face of severe environmental stress. Mallick has developed a framework for analyzing the competing choices to stay or to go and providing policymakers and designers of relief and development programmes with tools for analyzing the decisions to stay or migrate, for assessing the benefits and costs of remaining in place, and for developing policies that can better support those who choose non-migration. This book will be a valuable addition to the literature on environmental migration and will be useful for students, researchers, planners, and policymakers."

Jonathan Gilligan, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering; Professor of Climate and Environmental Studies; Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences; Vanderbilt University

"With the launch of this ground breaking book, Bishawjit Mallick highlights a dimension that often remains hidden in migration research: People who decide to stay - in other words the non-migrants - who are often presented as the 'left behinds' in ongoing migration research. Especially when it comes to climate vulnerable regions, people are assumed to leave, resulting in a massive outmigration. Based on empirical research carried out in various countries, including Bangladesh, India, , Kenya, Colombia, Brazil and the US, this eye-opening study delves into the complexities of why and how people choose to stay in environmentally vulnerable areas, challenging conventional narratives around migration and climate change adaptation.

This book help students and scholars to break silos and see the full picture of migration - but also hidden dimensions of climate adaptation: some migrants leave, but the majority decides to stay. It convincingly shows how people cope with vulnerabilities of place - while playing with a constantly evolving and complex web of connections across specific space that can be described as 'local' but is also, increasingly, shaped by translocal linkages, reflecting what is happening in other, related, places. It shows the importance of looking at non-migration and migration are sides of the same medal.

This book is a must for academics and practitioners working on migration - interested in broadening their horizon by looking at the active and dynamic side of those who are wrongly called climate 'victims', 'refugees' or the 'left behinds'. "

Annelies Zoomers, Professor emeritus of International Development Studies, Utrecht University, the Netherlands

"This timely book is a must-read for academics and policymakers working on climate change adaptation and climate im/mobility. It stimulates the reader to shift its attention away from climate change-induced migration towards the role of non-migration in the context of global warming. The option for communities to stay in climate change affected areas is often overlooked in adaptation discourse, while actually many want to stay, and can do so with the appropriate resources and policy interventions. Through numerous case studies and policy recommendations, this book makes it successfully tangible how to enable a right to stay in an era of global warming."

Ingrid Boas, Professor Environmental Policy Group at Wageningen University, The Netherlands

"It is exciting to see this evidence-based approach to a controversial and complicated topic, which often hits the headlines for the wrong reasons. We need the measured approach taken in this book, to consider human history, human abilities, and human interests at the intersection of human-caused climate change and choices plus lack of choices to move or not. Non-migration is such an important yet underexamined aspect of human interactions with our changing planet."

Ilan Kelman, Professor of Disasters and Health, University College London.

"Human mobility in the context of climate change is a fast-growing field of research, policy, and action. Since its emergence two decades ago, a central focus has been on how to avoid climate displacement that comes with losses and damages and make migration a successful adaptation to climate change. In recent years, there has been growing attention to situations and conditions of people who decide to stay and adapt in their places of residence despite often severe environmental risks. With a well-structured review of historical contexts, theoretical frameworks, and people-centred case studies from across the globe, Bishawjit Mallick?s book masterfully documents this paradigm shift. It presents environmental non-migration as a deliberate, adaptive strategy rooted in resilience, cultural continuity, and community strength. But it also shows the challenges people face and how they can be supported in their struggle for safety and sustainable livelihoods. Mallick's work is essential reading for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners seeking sustainable, people-centred approaches to human mobility and immobility in a warming world."

Dr. Kees van der Geest, Head of the Environment and Migration: Interactions and Choices (EMIC) Division at the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) in Bonn, Germany and co'founder of the Environmental and Climate Mobilities Network (ECMN)