What can rural-rural migrations in Ghana tell us about migration patterns?
Speaker: Dr. Jemima Nomunume Baada
Assistant Professor, Geography, UBC Vancouver
When & Where:
Thursday, Feb 13, 2025| 12:30pm-2:00pm
Anthropology & Sociology Building (ANSO) Room 134
6303 NW Marine Drive
Light refreshments to follow in Lino Lounge. Please RSVP in advance.
Abstract:
In sub-Saharan Africa, climate change effects such as decreasing and erratic rainfall, poor soil fertility and rising temperatures are having detrimental impacts on rural dwellers, as the majority depend on farming and natural resources for food and livelihoods. In Ghana, climatic impacts are unevenly distributed, with the northern sector currently facing the brunt of these stressors compared to the south. Given that most people in northern Ghana are subsistence farmers, and coupled with high rates of deprivation in the area, many migrate to rural communities of the country’s Middle Belt for alternative livelihoods. Although local and international policy conversations on climate-adaptive migrations are gaining attention, a key feature of these dialogues is the reliance on categorisations to determine the merit of climate vulnerabilities and associated solutions. For example, the rights and resources offered to ‘forced’ and ‘climate’ migrants are expected to differ from those offered to ‘voluntary’ and ‘economic’ migrants. In this presentation, I draw from interviews with rural migrants from the Upper West Region of Ghana currently resident in the Middle Belt, to demonstrate how migrations in this context challenge conventional migration categories. I emphasise the importance of rethinking binaries and recognising complexities in climate-related migration. Such approaches may help to minimise the exacerbation of inequities among climate-affected groups whose mobilities do not neatly fall under specified/recognised categories.
About Dr. Jemima Nomunune Baada
Jemima Nomunume Baada is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography. Her research examines how diversely situated individuals and groups are affected by climate change, development processes, health inequalities and migration in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and other parts of the world. She is particularly interested in learning about the experiences of rural dwellers, women and those whose livelihoods depend on environmental/natural resources (e.g., farmers). She is also interested in understanding how factors such as gender, climate-vulnerability and migration status may act as social and political ecological determinants of health.
