Yogyakarta. The Faculty of Geography has privileged to conduct International Seminar on Rapid Environmental Change and Migration at 6th November 2014 for a half day event. The main idea of this event is to provide a venue to share researches and experiences in the related fields on Environmental Change and Migration.
The speakers are PD. Dr. Felicitas Hillmann (Institut für geographische Wissenschaften, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany) together with Dr. Ernst Spaan (Radboud UMC, Nijmegen, The Netherlands) and Dr. Sukamdi, M.Sc (Lecturer in the Faculty of Geography UGM and researcher of Center for Population and Policy Studies UGM). Prof. Dr. Muh. Aris Marfai, M.Sc. (Vice Dean of the Faculty Geography), conducted coordination amongst the Faculty of Geography and the Freie Universität Berlin. This seminar is moderated by Agus Joko Pitoyo, S.Si., M.A. There are at least 40 students and lecturer-researchers attended at this seminar comprising bachelor, master, PhD students and the internship students, as well lecturers and researchers of the Faculty of Geography and Center of Population Study and Policy, UGM.
Dr. Hillmann together with Dr. Spaan conducted a presentation on New Regional Formations: Rapid Environmental Change and Migration in Coastal Regions of Ghana and Indonesia as part of the works on Migration Unit in the Volkswagen Stiftung Project. The presentation highlighted the perspective on new geographies of migration related to the climate change problems. Dr. Spaan continued the session by presenting their research on migration in Keta, Ghana as a perfect example of a region where people migrate since 18th century (slave trade).
Dr. Sukamdi presented a paper entitled “Why people don’t move”. Even though there are several reasons behind migration, Dr. Sukamdi highlighted the main motive behind migration is related to the economic reason. He also proposed valuation of migration comprising on place of living, other areas, individual assessment on physical, economical and social capacity of migrant.
The discussion session was very fruitful, the most interesting ideas is to compare how the migration process in different regions presented previously in the presentation session and what are the factors inducing migration. Since the participants are not only Indonesian (two internship students from University of Cardiff as well as one PhD student from Nepal were also attending this seminar), the discussion was not limited on the case study of Indonesia and Ghana, but also from Nepal and other countries.