Migrants as sustainability actors: Contrasting nation, city and migrant discourses and actions

Fry, Claudia, Boyd, Emily, Connaughton, Mark, Adger, W Neil, Franco Gavonel, Maria, Zickgraf, Caroline, Fransen, Sonja, Jolivet, Dominique, Fabos, Anita and Carr, Edward R., (2024). Migrants as sustainability actors: Contrasting nation, city and migrant discourses and actions. Global Environmental Change, 87 1-10

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  • Sub-type Journal article
    Author Fry, Claudia
    Boyd, Emily
    Connaughton, Mark
    Adger, W Neil
    Franco Gavonel, Maria
    Zickgraf, Caroline
    Fransen, Sonja
    Jolivet, Dominique
    Fabos, Anita
    Carr, Edward R.
    Title Migrants as sustainability actors: Contrasting nation, city and migrant discourses and actions
    Appearing in Global Environmental Change
    Volume 87
    Publication Date 2024-07
    Place of Publication Amsterdam
    Publisher Elsevier B.V.
    Start page 1
    End page 10
    Language eng
    Abstract Although it is widely recognized that migration is socially transformative, the potential contributions of migrants to transformations towards sustainability in their destination areas are often overlooked in mainstream discourse on environmentalism and sustainability. Here we seek to identify current narratives of migrants and sustainability across individual, urban, and national scales. Migrants are commonly framed in public policy as having no or even negative impacts on sustainability. The study hypotheses that the lived experience of sustainability by migrants within urban destinations differ from dominant discourses and perceptions of migrant populations within societies. We test and document such divergence using data from 21 interviews with key stakeholders from the city and Swedish national level, an attitudinal survey of 895 migrants and non-migrants in Malmo, Sweden; and a media analysis of local and national Swedish newspapers. Survey results show that migrants engage more extensively with a number of sustainability actions compared to non-migrants culminating in new insights on ‘migrants as sustainability actors’. By contrasting individual scale practices against urban to national sustainability narratives, the study illuminates current barriers to and the potential of migrants to play a transformative role in progress towards sustainability that is unrecognized in dominant policy discourses. To tap into this potential, the study emphasizes that sustainability policy across scales should embrace plurality and migration as fundamental parts of progress towards sustainability.
    UNBIS Thesaurus MIGRATION
    Keyword Sustainability Governance
    Urban Sustainability
    Political Ecology
    Copyright Holder The Authors
    Copyright Year 2024
    Copyright type Creative commons
    DOI 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102860
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    Created: Tue, 18 Jun 2024, 18:40:27 JST by Aarti Basnyat on behalf of UNU EHS