Posts tagged Climate change
HABITABLE: Habitability and Adaptation to a Changing Climate: Impacts of climate change on agriculture and human mobility in communities in Makueni County, Kenya
HABITABLE: Habitability and Adaptation to a Changing Climate: Impacts of climate change on agriculture and human mobility in communities in Makueni County, Kenya

January 2025

This background brief scrutinises the repercussions of climate change on livelihoods and human mobility in three communities in Makueni County, Kenya: Kathyaka, Kikoko, and Ngulu. Following an overview of Kenya's climatic and socioeconomic challenges, we summarise insights from qualitative interviews from these three agricultural communities, focusing on the role of migration among other local coping mechanisms. The challenges faced by these communities exhibit common themes. This brief then examines Kenya’s policies and legal frameworks acknowledging different dimensions of human mobility related to climate change.

It evaluates the extent to which these frameworks offer solutions to the problems experienced in these communities, which, in turn, intensify migration patterns. We conclude with Photo: Alexander Bee; Art and Graphic Design: Mohammed Hadj. Concept: Florence Kim. ©UN Network on Migration (2022). 2 recommendations to address the climate change human mobility nexus in Kenya, in particular by tackling shortcomings in existing policies and legal frameworks and by bolstering community resilience and adaptation strategies.

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Samuel HallKenya, Habitable, Makueni, Climate change, climate adaptive solutions, climate migration, agricultural sector, mobility
HABITABLE: Rethinking habitability from ordinary experience in Kenya
HABITABLE: Rethinking habitability from ordinary experience in Kenya

May 2024

The consequences of climate change are particularly pronounced in Kenya, where 80% of the land is arid or semi-arid. Most stakeholders understand the short-and long-term risks for communities.

What critical and constructive perspective can the concept of habitability offer in this context? Based on fieldwork carried out in Kenya for the HABITABLE consortium, the aim of this article is to refine the contextual, in situ definition of habitability, using exclusively qualitative data, supplemented by video-mapping exercises.

Secondly, this paper tests the hypothesis of tipping points, understood as triggers for individual or collective decision-making. Finally, in the last part of our analysis, we propose rethinking socio-ecological systems in a dynamic way and conceiving habitability as both a common good in the making and a critical issue for the men and women living in Baringo, Makueni, and Eastleigh.

Rather than proposing a positivist view of habitability, this article suggests linking habitability more closely to the daily practices, habits, solidarities, and resistances that shape the ordinary lives of community residents and displaced persons.

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Samuel HallKenya, Climate change, Habitability, Qualitative data, Mobility