Moving to dangerous places

Abstract

Mobility is an important part of the discourses around climate change. Many argue that mobility in connection to climate change, natural hazards, or similar is about \nbringing people to safety, supporting them in their own efforts to reach safe grounds, or as McAdam (2015) puts it: taking people away from “danger zones”. \nThis chapter investigates mobility of people living in informal settlements in Suva, the capital of Fiji, which are exposed to hazards . This chapter, hence concentrates on people moving to highly exposed areas. How can we explain when people move to ‘danger zones’ like is happening in many informal settlements in the Pacific Islands (and surely elsewhere)? Are people not aware that the locations are dangerous, do they not bother to find out, or do they consciously choose such ‘danger zones’? \nFor our study, we undertook interviews and observations in two informal settlements in Suva. Our research suggests that the two locations where people established \ninformal settlements were chosen at least in part because of their unfavourable environmental conditions. Whether this occurred consciously or more in a reflexive learning process that directed people to locations where they did not face evictions needs to be established in future research. It is becoming evident, however, that in Suva space is becoming scarce. Locations that nobody was interested in several decades ago are now in high demand. This also puts people who live in informal settlements at risk of being evicted by governments’ plans of relocation \nand/or by market forces, which can be seen as a special form of gentrification.