5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

Wide-ranging ecological transformations can characterise people’s experiences of movement in many different ways. Drought, flooding, temperature, weather, ecocide, development and much more enliven the mobility ecologies of all humans, be they sun-seeking tourists, heatwave-suffering commuters or families forcedly displaced from regions that have become unlivable. In this proposed session we would like to discuss the processes of environmental and climate change as multi-dimensionally, multi-sensorially, relationally, and intergenerationally lived in and with motion.

We invite scholars to propose theoretical and empirical papers addressing the lived experience of changing environment from the perspectives of persons and families that have moved, are moving, or will move locally or transnationally, as well as geographically dispersed families. This movement might respond to ecological transformations, or it might simply relate to them in some manner. Papers may tackle questions such as: How do individuals and families take on-going or anticipated ecological transformations into account when considering their mobilities? How are the continuous or abrupt changes in the environment and ecosystems in the regions of origin experienced from a distance, during visits, or in relation to people’s deliberation or imaginaries of return? How do people find out, experience, make sense of and deal with environmental and climatic threats and disasters facing their regions of origin, perhaps where their relatives still live? How do those who have moved live in connection with the changing climate and ecology in their new environments? What kind of conceptual and empirical tools do we need to better understand mobilities with changing ecologies?