BANGLADESH INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AND STRATEGIC STUDIES

GETTING LOST IN CATEGORIES: ENVIRONMENTALLY DISPLACED PEOPLE’S STRUGGLE TO GET RECOGNITION AS A REFUGEE OR MIGRANT

Author: Yeasmine Inayatullah

DOI Link: hppts://www.doi.org/10.56888/BIISSj2022v43n2a2

ABSTRACT

The inclination of migration literature of categorization such as ‘migrants’ and ‘refugees’ and linking with them the legitimacy of invoking legal claims to protection usually provides policymakers with justifications for exclusionary policies. The article explores how this literature-policy nexus leads to the exclusion of certain groups of endangered people, more precisely, people displaced due to climate change, from protection under international laws. The article builds upon the substantial body of migration literature exploring its categoric fetishism tendencies, thus, demonstrating a disjuncture between conceptual and policy categories that makes this group ‘legally’ invisible in international conventions. The article argues that the reluctance of policymakers to extend legal protection to an ever-increasing group of people displaced due to climate change is guided by this disconnect of literature-policy categories. In the light of this, the article’s contribution is twofold: a) it further strengthens the narrative that the exclusionary nature of existing migration literature is costing endangered people their right to protection, and b) building a case for the extension of legal protection to the rapidly increasing group of climate change displaced people.