What is it about?
When researchers look for migration in standard data, people who do not leave for months may appear to be stuck in place. This study looks more closely at one remote, drought-prone area in eastern Ethiopia. It combines survey data from 12,787 households with four weeks of fieldwork in 2022, including expert interviews, focus groups and in-depth household interviews. The fieldwork shows that "staying" covers very different situations. Some better-off households choose to stay and manage the drought. Elderly people cannot move but are supported by relatives and neighbours. Farmers who lost income travel daily to nearby towns for casual work. Young mothers beg in nearby towns, and some travel much farther, to feed their children. Many of these trips are short and local, so standard migration data does not record them.
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Why is it important?
A lack of recorded migration does not mean a lack of movement. People described as "trapped" often move out of necessity, under harmful conditions, and the poorest can end up in a cycle in which moving to survive keeps them poor. The study also shows that these people act to support their families rather than waiting passively. The area faces several crises at once, including drought, locusts, frost, inflation and conflict, so climate change is only one of the pressures. The authors recommend easing food insecurity and poverty where people live, strengthening safety nets, supporting small farmers, and paying special attention to single mothers, poor households with small children and the elderly. They also suggest that short local movements should be included in adaptation planning and could serve as early warning signs of worsening conditions.
Perspectives
Questions about who stays, who moves and who is stuck have been central to my research, and this paper shows how easily the label "trapped" can hide what is happening. People we might call immobile are often moving every day, and not by choice. I hope the article encourages researchers and policymakers to look beyond what standard datasets record and to listen to how people describe their own situation. I would be glad to hear from colleagues working on immobility and everyday mobility in other regions.
Dr. Dipl. Geogr. Simon Alexander Bunchuay-Peth
Universitat Wien
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Unveiling invisible climate im/mobilities: mixed-methods case study of a drought-prone rural area of Kersa, Ethiopia, Regional Environmental Change, February 2025, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1007/s10113-025-02373-1.
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