Living With Floods in a Mobile Southeast Asia ─ A Political Ecology of Vulnerability, Migration and Environmental Change

This volume contributes to a better understanding of the relationship between migration, vulnerability and resilience associated with flooding across diverse environmental, social and policy contexts in Southeast Asia. It challenges simple analyses of flooding as a singular driver of migration, and instead considers the ways in which floods figure in migration-based livelihoods and amongst already mobile populations.

The book sets out a conceptual framework based on a ‘mobile political ecology’ in which particular attention is paid to the multi-dimensionality, temporalities and geographies of vulnerability. Rather than simply emphasizing the capacities (or lack thereof) of individuals and households, the focus is on identifying factors that instigate, manage and perpetuate vulnerable populations and places: these include the socio-political dynamics of floods, flood hazards and risky environments, migration and migrant-based livelihoods, and the policy environments through which all of these take shape.

The book is organised around a series of tightly-argued empirical case studies from countries in the ASEAN region, where lives are marked by mobility and by floods associated with the region’s monsoonal climate. Specifically, these include Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. Together, the chapters highlight critical policy questions around the governance of migration, institutionalized disaster response strategies and broader development agendas.

Carl Middleton is a Lecturer in the Master of Arts in International Development Studies Program, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand.

Rebecca Elmhirst is a Principal Lecturer in the School of Environment and Technology, University of Brighton, UK.

Supang Chantavanich is a Professor and Director of the Asian Research Center for Migration, Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand.