Beyond Adaptation? The Changing Nature of Seasonal Migration in Northern Ghana in the Context of Climate Change, Agricultural Decline and Food Insecurity

Abstract

In the debate on the relationship between human migration and environmental degradation and climate change, migration is more and more understood as an adaptation strategy. Moreover, when migration is perceived as a response to underdevelopment or ecological change, it may serve as a strategy to increase resilience and livelihood and food security (for example Tacoli, 2009; Black et al., 2011; Scheffran et al., 2012). If one looks at the studies dealing with the interlinkages between environmental change and human mobility, it becomes obvious that it is not permanent migration in the first place, which makes human mobility an essential response to poverty, climate change or environmental degradation. It is rather temporarily limited migration undertaken by individual household members that may be perceived as an important adaptation strategy. Particularly seasonal migration plays a key role in the relevant contexts (Jaeger, 2009; Foresight, 2011; Schraven, 2012; Warner and Afifi, 2013).