Planetary Specters: Race, Migration, and Climate Change in the Twenty-First Century

Neel Ahuja
Feminist Studies
UC Santa Cruz

Although the “climate refugee” has become a key symbol of insecurity in international climate policy and reporting, little research has tracked the actual routes and displacement forces that integrate environmental factors into processes of human mobility. The first humanities book on the figure of the climate refugee, Planetary Specters: Race, Migration, and Climate Change in the Twenty-First Century argues that environmentally-driven migration tends to operate along routes and networks produced by inequalities in capitalist divisions of labor, land, and property. Critiquing racialized visions of climate-driven migration and conflict in Bangladesh and Syria within a broader context of interasian migration flows and wealth divides, the book studies how political and economic forces have been rescripted as environmental phenomena in ways that mask forms of inequality and racial division in moments of large-scale migration. Overall, the book argues against the integration of security discourse and crisis speculation in climate research and policy, suggesting that environmental justice advocates must counter racialized “climate wars” and “climate refugee” discourses that appeal to desires for militarized borders. The book makes interventions in environmental humanities scholarship by focusing on the intersection of comparative racialization theory, critical migration studies, and interdisciplinary research on climate change.