01 July 2022 – by Earth Refuge Correspondent Ole ter Wey
In this interview, correspondent Ole ter Wey speaks with Lauren Grant, director of field research at Earth Refuge. Together they discussed the world’s first international school on climate migration, which was founded and is run by Lauren. In the first half of the interview, Lauren talks about how her desire to start an academic space like the school came about, and how that idea eventually became a reality. Then, in the second half of the interview, Ole and Lauren elaborate on the substantive focus of the five-week summer school. They provide an overview of each session, which focused on the causes of forced climate migration, the different vulnerabilities and strengths of different social groups that are forced to migrate, and legal protections for climate migrants, among other topics.
“There is such a limited space to address climate migration at an academic level. From the very beginning I felt quite isolated, educating myself about it on my own. […] But when I found that there was an interest in climate migration im more people than myself, it was clear to me that there was not really a shortage of interest [but of academic space for discussion]. So this led me to the idea to establish something like a research center on the topic.”
