Environmental influences on African migration to Canada: focus group findings from Ottawa-Gatineau.
There is limited empirical evidence of how environmental conditions in the Global South may influence long-distance international migration to the Global North. This research note reports findings from seven focus groups held in Ottawa-Gatineau, Canada, with recent migrants from the Horn of Africa and francophone sub-Saharan Africa, where the role of environment in migration decision-making was discussed. Participants stated that those most affected by environmental challenges in their home countries lack the financial wherewithal to migrate to Canada. Participants also suggested that internal rural-urban migration patterns generated by environmental challenges in their home countries underlay socioeconomic factors that contributed to their own migration. In other words, environment is a second- or third-order contributor in a complex chain of interactions in the migrant source country that may lead to long-distance international migration by skilled and educated urbanites. These findings have informed the scope and detail of a larger, ongoing empirical study of environmental influences on immigration to Canada.
Department of Geography, University of Ottawa, 60 University, Room 017, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5 Canada.
Luisa
L
Veronis
Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University, 75 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON N2L 3C5 Canada.
Robert
R
McLeman
Global South–North migration; Horn of Africa; International migration; Migration decisions; Migration motivations; Sub-Saharan Africa; Urban ecological decline