Methodological challenges in studying climate-related migration in dry-zone agrarian contexts: evidence from Sri Lanka

Abstract

Abstract

Abstract Research on climate-related migration requires methodological approaches that capture both livelihood change and the household decision-making processes through which mobility is negotiated. In dry-zone agrarian contexts, migration is often temporary, selective, or constrained, complicating attempts to infer mobility outcomes directly from climatic stress alone. This paper presents a mixed-methods research design used to investigate climate-related migration among smallholder farming households in Sri Lanka’s dry zone. The study integrates a household survey ( n = 500) with semi-structured narrative interviews to examine livelihood pressures, migration experiences, and household decision-making. Illustrative empirical findings show that households exposed to similar environmental and livelihood pressures adopted diverse mobility pathways, including temporary migration, seasonal mobility, and remaining in place under constrained immobility. The paper outlines the key methodological decisions underpinning the research design. It reflects on fieldwork challenges, including interpreting slow-onset climatic stress, measuring temporary and circular mobility, limitations in recall, and the ethical and analytical complexities of studying non-migration. It argues that integrating quantitative and qualitative methods is essential to avoid deterministic interpretations of climate–migration relationships and to make constrained immobility and diverse household mobility pathways empirically visible. Although grounded in Sri Lanka’s dry zone, the methodological insights apply to climate–migration research in comparable agrarian settings.