Background

I am a PhD candidate in Sustainability Science at LUCSUS (Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies) and part of LUCID (Lund University Centre of Excellence for Integration of Social and Natural Dimensions of Sustainability).

I received my Master’s degree from Lund University in Environmental Studies and Sustainability Science, defending the thesis “Aqua-Feminism - Water Privatization and Sustainable Development: Insights from a Gender Perspective. A case study on Buenos Aires”.

PhD Project - Environmental Migration

In my research project I explore the linkages between ecological conditions and human migration, and the influence that the former exercise on the latter. I mainly focus on climate change and the phenomena often referred to as climate-induced migration.

I take an anti-essentialist stance, and analyze the discursive constructions (as concepts, narratives, imaginaries) through which knowledge and policies about the ‘environment-migration nexus’ are built. This also implies looking at the very material and political implications that such constructions have – as e.g. in the case of the contested concept of “climate refugee” and the involved narratives.
(see below for further details)

Research Interests

Key words
Climate Change, Migration/Mobility, Climate Security, Discourse Theory, Critical Development Studies, Political Ecology, Environmental/Climate Justice 

Environmental Migration - The Connections between Ecological Conditions and Human Migratory Processes

In many ways, the topic is not new at all. Bluntly speaking, it is indisputable that ecological conditions influence the life of human populations, as well as people’s decision about where to live, and thereby also their movements. In effect, the connections between population dynamics and ecological conditions have been studied for a long time and several disciplines have explored and reconstructed the linkages between ecological changes and population movements (here broadly labeled Environmental Migration, EM). Migration (especially temporary and cyclical) has been a strategy for populations for easing with environmental degradation and resource stresses throughout history.

The increased attention gained by global environmental changes has given new momentum to the debate. For instance, according to some widely cited studies, climate change might result in hundreds of millions of environmental migrants in the decades to come, causing enormous social, economic and environmental problems. The scientific robustness of such estimates is questionable and contested by many, but such scenarios have received consideration both in the politic and academic arena, contributing to EM (especially in relation to climate change) becoming a hot topic. For instance, the Cancun Adaptation Framework (signed by the parties to the UNFCCC in 2010) explicitly mentions the issue urging member countries to implement “[m]easures to enhance understanding, coordination and cooperation with regard to climate change induced displacement, migration and planned relocation”.  

The debate on EM – both within and outside academy - has been confused and chaotic, as symptomatized by the plethora of labels that pop up in the literature (climate exiles, environmentally displaced persons, ecological refugees, environmental migrants, climigrants are some examples). Moreover, there has been a tendency to polarize around two positions:

1. essentialist approaches grounded in mechanicistic and Malthusian understanding of environment-vulnerability-migration interactions – stating unidirectional, univocal and deterministic causal links like ‘increased ecological stress leads to intensified outmigration
2. perspectives that, by seeing migration as a fundamentally social phenomenon, question in toto the concept of EM – often failing to acknowledge the unprecedented impacts (in terms of pace and magnitude) that ecological changes will exercise on social processes and phenomena, and thereby likely also on migration patterns.

One of the main goals of my research is to go beyond such polarization. For doing this, I claim that an interdisciplinary approach is needed, one which is comfortable with ‘climate science’ but also embodies anti-essentialist, critical and constructionist contributions from social sciences. Some key-points of my rationale for assessing EM include:

• A “humanized” approach to environmental and climatic changes, which avoids essentialism and is open to the assessment and deconstruction of the concepts and discursive elements through which environmental/climate change is understood and thereby ‘acted upon’. Connected to this, a (re)conceptualization of the so-called nature-society interaction;
• An understanding of the topic that does not place EM in a social vacuum, but inscribes it within broader migratory patterns and ongoing societal changes; and at the same time acknowledges the complexity and multi-causality of migratory processes – where, why, how, and how long people move are crucial elements that individuate distinct phenomena with peculiar traits;
• A notion of vulnerability that stresses the social, economic and political relations across multiple and intersected axis (space, class, gender, race etc.) that originate and characterize vulnerabilities for different individuals, groups and geographical areas;
• EM opens up questions of intergenerational, intersectional and international fairness. These issues are quintessentially political, in that they are about the (re)distribution of power, resources and responsibilities. An approach for dealing with the politics of EM has to be able to reach beyond ‘governance’ discussions, at least if the ambition is to design emancipatory political lines able to change present political relations towards more democratic power constellations.

On the background of this broad framework, I specifically focus on the following topics:

• An analysis of how mobility is conceptualized in development as well as environmental/climate change discourses;
• An analysis of the discursive elements that form concepts as climate-induced migration and climate refugees. Specifically, I explore what I identify as alarmist, dystopic and apocalyptic narratives, foreseeing massive and unrestrained migratory flows from the global south to the global north. In such messages, the phenomenon of EM is often described in dramatic images and dystopic language. I attempt to deconstruct such narratives, highlighting their ingredients as well as their political implications (e.g. securitization of climate migration, ‘politics of fear’, etc);
• Reflections upon the political and distributive aspects of EM – relating to the ‘environmental/climate justice’ debate – in the attempt to contribute to a re-politicization of the issue.

Conference and Working papers

Copies of the papers are available upon request via e-mail.

Bettini, G. and L. Karaliotas (2011) ‘Exploring the Limits of Peak Oil: Naturalizing the Political, De-Politicizing Energy’. Paper presented at RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2011, London, September 2011.

Bettini, G. (2011) ‘(Un)secure Convergences - Climate refugees, apocalyptic narratives and climate security'. Paper presented at the AAG Annual Meeting, Seattle, April 2011

Thorén, H., G. Bettini, E. Brandstedt (2010). ‘Sustainability Science and the Anthropocene: Re-negotiating the Role for Science in Society’. Paper presented at the Berlin Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change, Berlin, Germany, October 2010.

Bettini, G., L. Olsson, H. Thoren (2010) ‘Extreme events and social transformation - catalysts or inhibitors?’. Paper presented at the Berlin Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change, Berlin, Germany, October 2010.

Bettini, G. (2010). ‘(De)Constructing Fear: Climate refugees, dystopic discourses and the de-politicization of the climate-migration nexus’. Paper presented at ‘Young Researchers Workshop’ at the 7th ECPR Pan-European IR Conference, Stockholm, 7-8 September, 2010.

Bettini, G., A. Kaijser, A. Jerneck (2009). ‘Multidimensional Mobility – Politics of Place and People: Merging top-down and bottom-up approaches to environmental migration’. Paper presented at 2009 Amsterdam Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change. Earth System Governance: People, Places and the Planet.

Bettini, G. (2009). ‘Combining perspectives and dealing with the multiple power dimensions of environmental migration’. Paper presented at Third IIPPE International Research Workshop, Ankara, Turkey.

Master thesis

“Aqua-Feminism - Water Privatization and Sustainable development: Insights from a Gender Perspective - a case study on Buenos Aires”. Master thesis, Lund University International Masters’ Program in Environmental Studies and Sustainability Science (LUMES), Lund University, Lund, Sweden.