About the research agenda

From grassroots to scale: Urban responses to climate migration and protracted displacement

The majority of displaced people now seek refuge in cities[1]—often alongside the urban poor in informal settlements—a trend with grave equity and health implications for both displaced and host populations, putting stress on already poor infrastructure (Andrews, 2020) and deeply inequitable land development patterns and tenure systems. As climate change[2], forced displacement and rapid urbanization accelerate worldwide, I believe it is crucial to develop novel responses that address them as interrelated dynamics, with special attention to struggles over rights to urban citizenship that increasingly pit the urban poor against the displaced poor (Yiftachel, 2015). 

While urban migration is not new, the scope and complexity of responses needed going forward will be unprecedented: In addition to sheer scale, climate factors will create new dynamics in people’s decisions to migrate. While historically men, in particular in sub-Saharan Africa, have sought work in cities to send remittances home to women in rural areas, growing numbers of women are now also migrating to cities. As climate instability intensifies and vulnerable regions become increasingly uninhabitable, displacement will become more and more protracted (Rigaud et al., 2018). Rural gravities will likely wane as migrants, in particular women, remain in cities indefinitely. 

There is a growing consensus that national governments are poorly positioned to respond to displacement. Recent research calls for more attention to and resources for city-led responses (Roderick et al., 2021; Saliba & Wolff, 2018). Continued international and national camp containment policies undercut support needed for displaced people in cities (Darling, 2016). Moreover, humanitarian frameworks today fail to understand urban protection as a long-term process inseparable from urban politics and development (Landau et al., 2016). Emerging research has framed displacement as accelerated urbanization and situated displaced people as rights-bearing urban citizens and local governments as frontline responders to displacement. It identifies incentives for local political will as crucial for investment in urban services that will benefit both host and displaced communities (Earle et al., 2020). 

However, city governments have their own challenges in responding to displacement: Decision-making is often fragmented and local authorities are reluctant to recognize displaced people as urban citizens and therefore take responsibility for providing them housing and services (Landau et al., 2016). Moreover, international climate funding for urban adaptation remains sidelined[3], undercutting city governments' ability to invest in infrastructure to absorb displaced people. Finally, the urban poor often obtain land and shelter not because of the state but despite it, through insurgent claims[4]. Therefore, relying solely on local government responses will likely fail to meet the urgent housing and basic infrastructure needs of displaced people. 

Building on the increased attention to city-led responses, I seek to evaluate the role local knowledge, community science, and social movements could play in building political will for informal settlement upgrading (i.e. place-based improvements in land tenure, housing, and basic services) to benefit both host and displaced populations. In particular, the role of two key strategies refined by urban poor federations over decades: neighborhood-based savings groups, which draw in new groups (in particular women) and community-led data collection as the basis for negotiating the co-production of upgrading plans with city governments (Satterthwaite & Mitlin, 2013). Because intensifying displacement and accelerating urbanization will likely transform migration and urban development dynamics, I believe it is urgent to examine the interrelationship between the two and its implications for upgrading as well as inclusive urban development more broadly. 

Broadly defined, my inquiry is: 

With the inevitable overload of our institutions and infrastructure due to climate and displacement crises—exacerbated by shocks like the COVID-19 pandemic—are there aspects of proven grassroots strategies that we can adapt to serve displaced populations and to new contexts and new urban climate futures? 

This includes questions in three key arenas: 

1. Collaboration/Competition – e.g. While federations’ upgrading strategies have proven successful for established residents to negotiate with planning authorities and offered a common learning platform to reconcile differences between households, will the same prove true for newcomer displaced populations? If hosts and displaced instead compete for scarce resources, what implications does this have for political will for upgrading?

2. Gender – e.g. As rural gravities wane and women make up a greater share of the displaced, will savings groups mobilize their grassroots participation like they have women in existing urban communities?

3. Urban adaptation – e.g. Can community-led data collection by displaced people attract climate and humanitarian resources to local governments for urban adaptation projects and help create broader coalitions to build political will for upgrading?

About this project   ON HOLD

Do climate-displaced people living in Kenya's cities participate in urban social movements?

I pursued this pilot project as the first step in the larger research agenda (outlined above) to begin assessing the landscape of research and practice in the field. I conducted exploratory interviews in Baringo and Nakuru counties in the Rift Valley. However, the project is currently on hold. 

In partnership with the Kenyan federation Muungano wa Wanavijiji and the affiliated NGO Akiba Mashinani Trust, I am collecting interview and survey data from displaced people living in informal settlements in the city of Nakuru. Kenya is an ideal location for this research because of its history of distress-driven migration, rising climate-linked displacement, rapid rates of urbanization, innovative research[1], and urban social movements at the forefront of community-led data collection and multi-sector collaboration for upgrading[2].

While upgrading strategies refined by federations over decades[3] have proven successful for established residents to negotiate with planning authorities and offered a common learning platform to reconcile differences between households, it is not understood how well they serve displaced, newcomer populations. Given that displaced people often face even greater housing, services and livelihood challenges than established host populations—as well as vulnerability to repeat displacement—these practices could represent a critical lifeline (in particular for women). However, even though this existing social infrastructure might prove a valuable resource, I hypothesize that it is difficult for displaced households to access (due to lack of coordination between the humanitarian and development sectors, local hostility, cultural barriers, and the ‘in limbo’ nature of protracted displacement itself).  

My questions, therefore, are: 

Among internally and climate-displaced households living in informal settlements: 

• (a) how many participate in local savings groups; 

• (b) to what degree and with what outcomes; and 

• (c) what practices aid or impair meaningful participation? 

As displaced people make up a greater share of the urban poor, their participation in social movements might improve social cohesion with host communities; attract climate and humanitarian resources for urban adaptation; and create broader coalitions to build political will for upgrading. In the near-term, broader, more representative movements might aid local government response while the urban, humanitarian, and climate sectors catch up and, in turn, help shape inclusive development policies and investments from the ground up in the medium- and long-term.