For this Special Issue, we would like to invite contributions that focus on the development of migration aspirations when facing environmental changes and hazards. The main aim of this Special Issue is to shed light on the issues scholars are facing when measuring and examining the development of migration aspirations related to environmental change, to better understand how environmental factors influence migration decision-making and the development of aspirations as well as to discuss how the vulnerabilities of people affected by environmental change depend on a multiplicity of factors. This Special Issue aims, generally, to employ a comparative approach in order to delineate factors and conditions in which migration aspirations develop due to environmental factors or in as a result of environmental change. This comparative approach is particularly interesting since the impact of environmental changes are often felt through other social, political, and economic consequences. In this way, we can shed light on how societal structures and migrant networks may hinder and/or facilitate (environmental) migration. It is often hard for affected people or people living in high-risk areas to pinpoint the extent to which environmental changes have contributed to their migration aspirations and trajectories, and how this has given rise to the development of other adaptation strategies. Furthermore, given the varying perceptions of environmental changes and risks, as well as the interpretations thereof, the slow onset or abrupt nature of these environmental changes, and the prevailing discourses on environmental migration, it would be of added value to compare and study how migration aspirations are formed in the light of environmental change in the immediate living environment and how this can be influenced by pre-existing migration networks, historical migration trends, and cultures of migration. We would especially like to invite contributions 1) examining the development of migration aspirations, or the lack thereof (i.e., immobility/not being able to aspire to migrate), 2) using a comparative approach, or 3) studying migration aspirations retrospectively (i.e., after having migrated or from a biographical perspective).
Keywords: environmental migration; migration aspirations; perceived environmental change; risk perceptions; adaptation strategies.