The emergence of environmental migration and displacement management ‘best practices’ in the Pacific

In 2022, 32.6 million people fled their homes in response to environmental stressors, which disproportionately affect Pacific communities and households (IDMC, 2023; IPCC, 2018). So, how are Pacific governments responding to the growing challenge of environmental migration and displacement?

The project adopted the human geography method of 'following policy' to trace the emergence of 'best practices' in the issue area. By interviewing and observing policy experts operating at multiple sites and scales, the project identified three approaches to regulating environmental migration and displacement: planned relocation, labour migration and humanitarian protection.

It seeks to explain variation in the extent to which these 'models' have become institutionally embedded in the Pacific. In doing so, the study contributes to theories of policy mobility.

This seminar is Lakshmin's final presentation of her doctoral candidature.

About the speaker

Lakshmin Mudaliar is a geographer and a PhD candidate at the School of Regulation and Global Governance at the Australian National University. She holds a Bachelor of Science, Post-Graduate Diploma of Science and Master of Science from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.

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This seminar presentation will be in-person only.

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Image credit: Image of a sign on South Tarawa, Kiribati, warning of the threat of sea level rise to the island, with its highest point being 3 metres above sea level, from Wikipedia Commons, (CCBY 2.0).