Migration as a human adaptation to climate change

This thesis is an investigation of the relationship between climate change and human migration behaviour. It introduces a conceptual model for interpreting this relationship, a model that is grounded in recent theoretical developments in climate change adaptation and migration research. Using the concept of vulnerability as it has been applied to the potential impacts of climate change on human populations, the research develops the concept that human adaptive responses can occur at multiple scales, and that migration away from an area exposed to climate change is one of any number of potential adaptive responses. This research focuses on household-level migration behaviour during periods of exposure to adverse climatic conditions. It shows that access to capital, in its economic, social and cultural forms, influences household migration decisions.;The findings from this case study are consistent with the conceptual model, suggesting that climate change-migration can be interpreted in the context of climate change adaptation, and that household migration decisions under adverse climatic conditions are reflected in household access to economic, social and cultural capital.;This thesis follows the manuscript format option approved by the Department, and includes three manuscripts presently under various stages of review at peer-reviewed journals, all relating to the central theme of the thesis research.;Using the case of interstate migration patterns that emerged in rural Eastern Oklahoma during drought-related crop failures in the 1930s, this research studied and compared the capital endowments of migrant and non-migrant households in light of the conceptual model. Definitions of the forms of capital as developed by sociologist Pierre Bourdieu were used for the purposes of this study. Information about household access to the various forms of capital was compiled from a variety of historical documentary sources and through interviews with people in Sequoyah County, Oklahoma and Kern County, California, who had firsthand knowledge of the migration. Techniques influenced by those used in grounded theory research were employed to organize the gathered information. Patterns emerged from the empirical information showing that particular types of capital were common among people who migrated from the exposed region to the Southern San Joaquin Valley, and that such patterns differed from those of nonmigrants.