Mumuni Abu , Samuel N.A. Codjoe , W. Neil Adger , Sonja Fransen , Dominique Jolivet , Ricardo Safra De Campos , Maria Franco Gavonel , Charles Agyei-Asabere , Anita H. Fábos , Caroline Zickgraf
{"title":"Micro-scale transformations in sustainability practices: Insights from new migrant populations in growing urban settlements","authors":"Mumuni Abu , Samuel N.A. Codjoe , W. Neil Adger , Sonja Fransen , Dominique Jolivet , Ricardo Safra De Campos , Maria Franco Gavonel , Charles Agyei-Asabere , Anita H. Fábos , Caroline Zickgraf","doi":"10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2023.102790","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span>Development that is inclusive and sustainable requires significant social and environmental transformations from current trajectories, building on demographic realities such as changing profiles of populations, and increased levels of mobility. Migration is a major driving force of urbanisation in all global regions, partly facilitated through emerging technologies and declining costs of movement and communication. Social transformations associated with increased migration are highly uneven but include shifts in the location of economic activities, major urban growth, and changing individual incentives and social constraints on sustainability trajectories. Yet, there is limited empirical evidence on how observed population movements can both challenge and promote sustainable transformations. This paper examines how migration transforms places and societies, by providing new evidence on the behaviours and practices of individuals who are part of such transformations as they assimilate, converge or remain distinctive to prior populations. Focusing on individuals in rapidly expanding cities in the Global South, this study uses new biographical life-history survey data from Accra, Ghana, to examine the barriers and enablers of sustainability practices among diverse types of migrants and a sample of non-migrants. The study uses data from 1,163 individuals: international migrants from the West African sub-region (5</span> <!-->5<!--> <!-->9), internal migrants (2<!--> <!-->9<!--> <!-->9), and non-migrants (3<!--> <!-->0<!--> <span>5) in Accra. The findings show that sustainability practices established before migration are predictors of current sustainability practices, including proactive recycling, conservation activities, and choice of mode of transportation<span><span>, but that there is some convergence between behaviours, reflecting assimilation, place attachment and other factors. Internal migrants in Accra exhibit stronger sustainability practices than international migrants. Individual levels of poverty, poor infrastructural development<span>, and perceptions about life satisfaction in the neighbourhood negatively affect sustainability practices among all respondents. These results suggest that poverty and social exclusion are critical to addressing sustainability issues in urban contexts. It is important for policy makers to address issues of urban poverty, cumulative deprivation, and </span></span>inequality as strong barriers to the adoption of sustainability practices in urban areas.</span></span></p></div>","PeriodicalId":328,"journal":{"name":"Global Environmental Change","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":8.6000,"publicationDate":"2023-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Global Environmental Change","FirstCategoryId":"6","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378023001565","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Development that is inclusive and sustainable requires significant social and environmental transformations from current trajectories, building on demographic realities such as changing profiles of populations, and increased levels of mobility. Migration is a major driving force of urbanisation in all global regions, partly facilitated through emerging technologies and declining costs of movement and communication. Social transformations associated with increased migration are highly uneven but include shifts in the location of economic activities, major urban growth, and changing individual incentives and social constraints on sustainability trajectories. Yet, there is limited empirical evidence on how observed population movements can both challenge and promote sustainable transformations. This paper examines how migration transforms places and societies, by providing new evidence on the behaviours and practices of individuals who are part of such transformations as they assimilate, converge or remain distinctive to prior populations. Focusing on individuals in rapidly expanding cities in the Global South, this study uses new biographical life-history survey data from Accra, Ghana, to examine the barriers and enablers of sustainability practices among diverse types of migrants and a sample of non-migrants. The study uses data from 1,163 individuals: international migrants from the West African sub-region (5 5 9), internal migrants (2 9 9), and non-migrants (3 0 5) in Accra. The findings show that sustainability practices established before migration are predictors of current sustainability practices, including proactive recycling, conservation activities, and choice of mode of transportation, but that there is some convergence between behaviours, reflecting assimilation, place attachment and other factors. Internal migrants in Accra exhibit stronger sustainability practices than international migrants. Individual levels of poverty, poor infrastructural development, and perceptions about life satisfaction in the neighbourhood negatively affect sustainability practices among all respondents. These results suggest that poverty and social exclusion are critical to addressing sustainability issues in urban contexts. It is important for policy makers to address issues of urban poverty, cumulative deprivation, and inequality as strong barriers to the adoption of sustainability practices in urban areas.
期刊介绍:
Global Environmental Change is a prestigious international journal that publishes articles of high quality, both theoretically and empirically rigorous. The journal aims to contribute to the understanding of global environmental change from the perspectives of human and policy dimensions. Specifically, it considers global environmental change as the result of processes occurring at the local level, but with wide-ranging impacts on various spatial, temporal, and socio-political scales.
In terms of content, the journal seeks articles with a strong social science component. This includes research that examines the societal drivers and consequences of environmental change, as well as social and policy processes that aim to address these challenges. While the journal covers a broad range of topics, including biodiversity and ecosystem services, climate, coasts, food systems, land use and land cover, oceans, urban areas, and water resources, it also welcomes contributions that investigate the drivers, consequences, and management of other areas affected by environmental change.
Overall, Global Environmental Change encourages research that deepens our understanding of the complex interactions between human activities and the environment, with the goal of informing policy and decision-making.