Sengupta Moitrayee
Chair of Environmental Development and Risk Management, Faculty of Environmental Sciences, TUD Dresden University of Technology, 01062, Dresden, Germany.
Ambio. 2025 Nov;54(11):1729-1756. doi: 10.1007/s13280-025-02195-9. Epub 2025 Jun 11.
Environmental migration research has traditionally focused on mobility outcomes in the face of environmental change. However, the 'trapped populations' concept introduced in the influential Foresight Report (2011) drew attention to immobility outcomes owing to people's inability or unwillingness to migrate away from environmentally high-risk settings. To assess the evolution of the empirical research landscape of environmental immobility, this paper systematically reviews 55 studies in terms of their thematic focus areas, theoretical and methodological concerns, geographical distribution, the interplay between environmental and societal contexts, the characterisation of immobility processes, and interrelations with mobility processes. The findings suggest a predominant focus on the causes of immobility based on a dichotomisation of immobility as 'forced' and 'voluntary'. Using insights from migration theory, this paper provides a schematic framework that helps us think analytically about environmental immobility processes in terms of a continuum of choices and constraints and implications for stayers' well-being.
传统上，环境迁移研究主要关注面对环境变化时的迁移结果。然而，具有影响力的《展望报告》（2011年）中引入的“被困人口”概念，将人们的注意力吸引到了因无法或不愿从高环境风险地区迁出而导致的非迁移结果上。为评估环境非迁移实证研究领域的发展，本文从主题重点领域、理论和方法问题、地理分布、环境与社会背景之间的相互作用、非迁移过程的特征以及与迁移过程的相互关系等方面，对55项研究进行了系统综述。研究结果表明，基于将非迁移分为“被迫”和“自愿”的二分法，研究主要聚焦于非迁移的原因。本文运用迁移理论的见解，提供了一个框架示意图，有助于我们从选择和限制的连续统以及对留居者福祉的影响方面，对环境非迁移过程进行分析性思考。
