The Project

Abstract

History provides clear evidence of the influence of natural events on migratory phenomena. In the past, population movements were the result of a survival instinct that led whole communities to environments more suitable for a more stable and secure existence. The certainty that climate has always conditioned human mobility has led to the prevailing view that environmental factors are not relevant elements in the study of international migration phenomena. In fact, the reference to climate as a push factor for migration was rarely analysed by the social sciences in the 20th century. Thus, for a long time, climate change has been studied exclusively by the natural sciences, without careful reflection on the medium- to long-term transformative effects it may have on societies that receive migratory flows of environmental/climatic origin, putting their political, economic, social and cultural structure at risk, especially when these flows appear to be constant and constantly increasing, as they are today. Scientific studies have often been limited to identifying possible remedies for the negative effects on the societies concerned in the short term, with a view to emergency management, trusting in the "inevitable" absorption of migrants by the host territorial communities in the medium to long term. Although some publications on the phenomenon of environmental migrants can be traced back to the 1970s, it was not until the 1990 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that the human dimension of climate change came to the fore. This initial research and subsequent policy debates had a disruptive effect on the scientific-academic debate, which has gradually evolved over the decades to acknowledge that environmental/climate change may influence migration patterns and human behaviour. The project will focus research on environmental/climatic migration in the Euro-Mediterranean region, which is characterised by a high population concentration on the coasts (about 150 million people, 1/3 of the total population of the coastal states, doubling to 65% on the southern coast), progressive urbanisation of the coasts, sea level rise and coastal erosion, increasingly frequent droughts and water scarcity, etc. Several international bodies are pursuing initiatives to help coastal countries develop common but diverse strategies to manage the impact of the phenomenon on their societies, but no study seems to have analysed the phenomenon in a more articulated and complex perspective. The displacement of masses of people could also lead to humanitarian crises with far-reaching security implications: high migratory pressures are likely to exacerbate political tensions and conflicts in the countries of origin, transit and arrival of the flows, leading to the destabilisation of social structures and the development of peaceful international relations.

The project will focus on the following strands of research and their interrelationships, with the aim of developing policy proposals for the governance of the phenomenon: (a) environmental/climatic migration in a historical and historical/legal perspective; (b) the influence of environmental/climatic migration on the redefinition of economic policies in the Euro-Mediterranean region; (c) the redefinition of political, legal and social models in the light of the cultural inputs arising from the phenomenon of environmental/climatic migration in host societies, including through the use of quantitative analysis methods based on artificial intelligence; and (d) environmental sustainability as a constraint on the migration phenomenon. Across the various research strands, the CRR will promote a new approach to migration research based on participatory research and citizen science through collaboration with OPERAS-IT.

The Project was formed to develop an interdisciplinary research, involving different scientific fields (historians, geographers, political scientists, jurists, economists, engineers), in which researchers, dialoguing and integrating their expertise, can find points of contact to identify and solve together the critical issues that the environmental/climatic migration phenomenon poses for the Euro-Mediterranean region. Starting from the intermediate results that the application such an approach will allow to identify, being faced with a phenomenon of enormous complexity, the mere juxtaposition of disciplines as a method of investigating reality is not considered sufficient in itself. Such a phenomenon, originating from distinct causes and producing articulated effects, requires the integration of multiple points of view in a transdisciplinary key, to be achieved not only through the intersection of the different disciplinary perspectives of the members, but by broadening as much as possible the vision on the object of investigation, with the inclusion of stakeholders deeply related to the research topic, as bearers of specific interests and needs to be taken into account in the development of solution proposals.