"Climate Change and Immobility"
Speaker : Dr. Chetan Choithani
Associate Professor, Inequality and Human Development Programme, NIAS.
@ : cchoithani@nias.res.in
Chairperson : Dr. Anant Kamath
Associate Professor, Inequality and Human Development Programme, NIAS
@ :anant.kamath@nias.res.in
Date : 12th August 2026
Time : 9.30 AM
Venue : Lecture Hall
Abstract: This talk will examine the relationship between climate change and migration through the lens of immobility. Research and policy discussions on climate-migration nexus invariably focus on the impact of climate change in driving mass population displacement and permanent movement. This focus stems from, at least in part, the mobility bias of much migration research. Research on vulnerable communities shows that climate change can often have the reverse effect of trapping them into conditions of immobility. Migration requires financial and social resources, and environment events can further deprive the already vulnerable communities of migration capital to successfully move out of their habitats. Moreover, place attachment often means that even when there are opportunities to move, people stay put until they can. This talk will highlight these connections and will also argue for a pathways-based understanding of climate-migration nexus, contrary to the linear, cause-effect relationship that sees permanent population movement as inevitable outcome of climate change.
About the speaker: Chetan Choithani is an Associate Professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bengaluru. His research and teaching interests include migration and urbanisation, food and nutrition, livelihoods, gender, and social policy and how they relate to development, particularly in the Indian context. He is the author of Migration, Food Security and Development: Insights from Rural India, published by Cambridge University Press, 2022. He is currently co-leading, among other things, a research project on Displaced Livelihoods: Climate Change, Agrarian Distress, and Labor Migration in India funded through Columbia University’s President Global Innovation Fund.