Mobility is an inherent dynamic among vulnerable populations

Jump to: ASSAR's focus on mobility | Key insights | Contact | News stories | Outputs

Mobility is an important strategy to manage risk in semi-arid regions, but it doesn’t always lead to improved wellbeing. Whether moving or staying put, risks can increase for those with little agency. Conversely, mobility can provide the means to move out of risky locations and improve livelihoods. In these cases, migration contributes to improved wellbeing and adaptive capacity.

ASSAR’s focus on mobility

Semi-arid regions are crucibles of change in which different stressors coalesce, increasing the pressure on populations who are in many cases already vulnerable. Within these environments, mobility is an essential feature in many people’s lives, and represents a key risk-management strategy, enabling populations to respond to livelihood shocks and stresses. Over time, risks change and evolve as do risk management behaviours, including mobility. Unpacking the multiple, intersecting vulnerabilities that are manifest in semi-arid regions is critical to generate greater insights into the ‘how and why’ of risk management, and to enable more equitable and effective adaptive responses.

ASSAR investigated the role of mobility as an adaptive response to change within populations in semi-arid regions. The dynamic and intersectional nature of risks and responses is not well articulated in global environmental change literature. Using empirically-rich data, our research highlights how people’s approaches to managing risks are individualised but set within other social institutions, such as households and communities. It also points to the importance of mobility within risk-management strategies. Mobility can facilitate changes to risk portfolios in a number of ways, including accentuating or attenuating risks, eradicating risks entirely, or exposing populations to completely new risks. Conversely, sometimes mobility doesn’t lead to any changes in the underlying risks people are exposed to. Changes are shaped by a person’s agency, which is set within a web of broader social structures.

Over time, we see how the risks that people experience, and their responses to them, alter their wellbeing trajectories. Through a novel theoretical concept – the ‘adaptation option space’ – our evidence suggests that it can sometimes become increasingly difficult to shift downward wellbeing trajectories. Using the life history methodology helps to reveal these wellbeing trajectories, capturing the temporality of risks, livelihood choices, adaptation outcomes, and their interrelationships. This approach shows how current responses are influenced by past events, and enables us to infer how current behaviours may influence future, as yet unknown, events.

Key insights

Everyday mobility enables people in semi-arid regions to maintain their livelihoods, and manage risk

The use of mobility in semi-arid regions is the norm rather than the exception, supporting a variety of livelihoods reliant on natural resources (such as firewood collection or pastoralism), in addition to trading and more regularised commuting from rural areas to large urban settlements. Mobility is a key resource that people draw upon to manage highly dynamic conditions.

Risks and responses are dynamic and interact with one another to shape the options available to people over time

Mobility occurs within a dynamic context of intersecting risks and responses that change over time. These interactions shape the 'adaptation option space' – the space available to people to adapt given the risks they face, responses they undertake, and adaptive capacities they hold. Different individuals and households respond differently, and the outcomes of mobility also vary. The life history approach shows how risks and adaptation options change over time, and their implications on wellbeing. Knowing where people have come from helps to understand not only their current situation but also their ability to respond to future, as yet unknown, livelihood stresses.

Migration is not always beneficial so alternatives should be explored to avoid risks to migrants and those left at home

There are trade-offs associated with moving. At an intra-household level, migration and commuting can alleviate vulnerability for some family members while exacerbating the vulnerability of those left behind. At a larger scale, migration that is adaptive at a household scale can be maladaptive at a system- scale if cities are unable to provide for or absorb migrants who often live in highly vulnerable conditions. On a temporal scale, migration and commuting affect livelihood trajectories and choices of those beyond the migrants alone. We found evidence of migration decisions shaping opportunities across generations.

Click here for more detail, and ASSAR's specific recommendations for policy, practice, and research

Contact