S01 E05 (No)Where to Go?!

Wildfires, flooding, rising seas — climate change is reshaping where people can live. But who moves, who stays, and why? In this episode “(No)Where to Go?!”, Aurora A. Sauter, Goethe University Frankfurt and Osnabrück University, speaks with climate adaptation expert Professor Jesse M. Keenan of Tulane University in New Orleans. Together, they explore how connections between climate change, migration, and immobility are produced through social, political, and economic processes. Rather than focusing on regions commonly portrayed as particularly vulnerable to climate change, the conversation turns to the United States: a country that is both one of the world's largest carbon emitters and increasingly affected by climate-related disasters. What shapes the decision to move or stay in the face of environmental change? And what can the US case teach us about the production—and de-production—of migration? These questions are taken up in the concluding reflection by Aurora A. Sauter and her colleague Professor Thomas Scheffer, Goethe University Frankfurt.

About the Guest

Prof. Dr.  Jesse M. Keenan is a leading scholar of climate change, urban planning, and the built environment. He is Associate Professor of Sustainable Real Estate and Urban Planning and Director of the Center on Climate Change and Urbanism at  Tulane University in New Orleans. His research focuses on how climate change is reshaping cities, housing markets, infrastructure, and patterns of human mobility. Before joining Tulane, he held senior academic positions at Harvard University and Columbia University, and he has advised U.S. government agencies, state governments, and international organizations on climate adaptation and resilience. Keenan is widely recognized for his pioneering work on climate migration and climate gentrification and is the author of several influential books, including  North: The Future of Post-Climate America (Oxford University Press: 2025).

About the Hosts

 Aurora A. Sauter is a research associate at Goethe University Frankfurt, a doctoral researcher in the Collaborative Research Centre “Production of Migration” (SFB 1604) and  member of the Executive Board of SFB 1604. Her work is situated at the intersection of migration, climate change, and interpretive sociology. Within the SFB’s project C5  The Production of Climate Flight as an Occasion for Theorization, she studies how climate-related migration and (im)mobility are produced through scientific, political, legal, and humanitarian practices. Her dissertation focuses on climate-induced relocation and adaptation processes in the United States and in the Netherlands.

 Prof. Dr. Thomas Scheffer is Professor of Sociology with a focus on interpretive social research at the Institute of Sociology at Goethe University Frankfurt. He is a member of the  Council of the German Sociological Association (DGS) and Principal Investigator (PI) of the Collaborative Research Centre “Production of Migration” (SFB 1604) project C5  The Production of Climate Flight as an Occasion for Theorization, where he works together with Aurora A. Sauter. His research focuses on political field and discourse analysis, legal sociology, political sociology, case study research, and qualitative methodology. Scheffer developed  Trans-Sequential Analysis (TSA), a critical ethnomethodological approach that connects episodes and processes of discursive work. His current work further develops a sociology of existential problems, exploring how social orders are shaped under conditions of uncertainty and crisis.