Over 70 million people have been forcibly displaced worldwide, with large increases in recent years having been driven by a complex mix of factors, including environmental shocks, conflict, and economic crisis. As ever, the vast majority of these people stay within countries or regions and suffer. Meanwhile perceptions of migration — which are often incorrect — are exploited by regressive political movements. In this episode of the “Great Unraveling?” series, Sonia Shah joins me to explore the factors driving migration, how fragilities in social, economic and political systems, as well as environmental destabilisation, could impact migration into the future, and how we should think differently about migration as ‘a problem’.
Sonia Shah is a science journalist and prize-winning author. Her books include Pandemic: Tracking Contagions from Cholera to Coronaviruses and Beyond, and The Next Great Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move.
Laurie Laybourn 