‘Othering’ in the Panicocene: intergovernmental and non-governmental awareness campaigns on climate change induced-migration

In recent decades, the nexus between human mobility and climate change has gained increasing prominence in public and policy debates. Mainstream media narratives and political discourses have often framed climate change induced-migration as a security crisis caused by inevitable natural events, with the risk of fuelling unfounded anxiety and discrimination towards environmental migrants and feeding the ‘Panicocene’, the age of panic. In this study, we explore how intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations raise awareness of the nexus between climate change and migration. To this aim, this paper presents a qualitative, interpretive analysis of four communication campaigns promoted by the International Organisation for Migration, and the NGOs Climate Refugees and WeWorld, by applying critical discourse analysis and frame analysis to the websites of these campaigns. Our findings highlight the potential risk of ‘othering’ the figure of the environmental migrant inherent in both NGOs and IOM’s narratives for different reasons. Finally, we suggest that a more insightful way of thematising the link between climate change and migration should focus on the interconnections between climate and mobility justice, thus taking into account the historical relationships between the capitalist development model, colonial extraction, and bordering processes.