CO-SPONSORSHIP: International Development and Religion Unit and Religion and Migration Unit

Religion and Climate Migration

Changes in environments – often a consequence of rapid and radical anthropogenic climate change – are an increasingly important driver of migration. Despite a consensus among scholars that the environmental impact on migration is difficult to measure, its significance for the movement of people across the globe needs to be studied. This co-sponsored session seeks proposals that explore the nexus between religion and climate migration from both empirical and explanatory angles, including normative questions. We are interested in

1.      case study examples of religious beliefs and practices affecting and being affected by climate migration;

2.      the collaboration of faith-based organizations in humanitarian and development interventions for climate migrants;

3.      the contribution that different and diverse faith traditions make to emerging normative frameworks that aim to address the governance of climate migration; and

4.      the challenge that climate migration poses to discourse about people on the move, both locally and globally;

5.      definitional and conceptual debate on the parameters of this emerging area of research on intersections of religion and climate migration.