Migrating as an adaptive pathway? Gendered and ambivalent mobility outcomes along the adaptation–maladaptation continuum

Abstract

Abstract

While mobility can represent an adaptive or a maladaptive strategy in the context of climate change, its outcomes remain far from straightforward. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in a prominent yet understudied urban destination for internal migrants in Bangladesh, the paper argues that for women who often already face significant gender inequalities in Bangladesh, their internal mobility may add another layer to their struggles. The findings show that while mobility can represent an adaptive pathway by enhancing women's economic autonomy, agency and capabilities over time, persistent gender dynamics continue to limit women's access to labor markets and expose them to new forms of exploitation, precarity and inequality. Moreover, migrant women often face heightened exposure and vulnerability to climate risks at the destination, revealing important boundaries of mobility as a form of adaptation. Expanding on a combination of three theoretical frameworks, the paper analyses the distributional effects and the transformational potential of mobility along a dynamic, multidimensional, gendered, contextually differentiated and temporally contingent adaptation–maladaptation continuum. In doing so, this article bridges gaps in mobility studies and mobility-as-adaptation debates from a gender perspective and challenges the often gender-blind and binary conceptualization of mobility as either adaptation or maladaptation. Ultimately, this article expands on existing analytical approaches by adding analytical dimensions for assessing adaptive pathways and their limits from a gender perspective. This can inform development interventions and policies aimed at supporting more gender-inclusive, contextually sensitive and sustainable adaptive pathways.