Climate Captivity
When in-situ Adaptation and Moving Out Are No Longer Options
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8252871 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Samuel Rufat (0000-0001-6356-1233), Christian Kuhlicke (0000-0002-1193-228X) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 393-411 |
| Publication date | 2025-12-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Progress in Environmental Geography (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2753-9687 • E-ISSN: 2753-9687 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/27539687251378494 |
| OpenAlex | W4414490242 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 107 |
The term captivity describes the condition in which people face increasing exposure to human-made climate disruptions or disaster risks without effective means to mitigate these impacts—whether through in-situ adaptation, mobility, or migration. Captivity offers an alternative to terms such as immobility or trapped, shifting the focus toward the root causes of why people remain in potentially uninhabitable places. This article establishes captivity as an analytical framework to examine the diverse reasons and consequences of prolonged environmental risk exposure. It also challenges the implicit assumption in climate migration and adaptation research that affected individuals are responsible for not leaving sooner or making the “right” choices. Rather than ceasing their efforts to adapt or relocate, captive individuals often experience repeated failures in their attempts to reduce vulnerability, leading to maladaptation over time. Although empirical findings remain fragmented across different fields and are frequently marginalized through the uncritical deployment of terminology, the outward projection of threats, whether by displacing risk spatially, temporally, or cognitively, may constitute the sole remaining coping mechanism as environments become progressively uninhabitable. By conceptualizing captivity, we aim to deepen understanding of the lived experiences, decision-making processes, and daily struggles of those caught in worsening environmental conditions
Adaptation (eye · Captivity · Climate change · Coping (psychology · Empirical research · Maladaptation · Software deployment · Climate Change, Adaptation, Migration · Disaster Management and Resilience · Flood Risk Assessment and Management
Shock Waves
Place attachment and natural hazard risk
A Review of Risk Perceptions and Other Factors that Influence Flood Mitigation Behavior
Putting trapped populations into place
Disaster risk, climate change, and poverty
Sea-level rise and human migration
Changes in implicit flood risk premiums
Prevention, Adaptation, and Threat Denial
We are at risk, and so what? Place attachment, environmental risk perceptions and preventive coping behaviours
From Poverty to Disaster and Back
Spatializing energy justice
What determines flood risk perception? A review of factors of flood risk perception and relations between its basic elements
Global evidence of rapid urban growth in flood zones since 1985
Planet of Slums
The Risk Perception Paradox—Implications for Governance and Communication of Natural Hazards
Tracing Mobilities
Multiple Flood Experiences and Social Resilience
Ground truth
Strengthening resilience in reconstruction after extreme events – Insights from flood affected communities in Germany
‘I do not like her going to the shelter’
Shifting power through participation in post-disaster recovery
Place attachment in natural hazard-prone areas and decision to relocate
Trapped in the prison of the mind
Navigating the continuum between adaptation and maladaptation
Anchored in place, driven by risk
Climate migration myths
Vulnerability and vulnerable groups from an intersectionality perspective
Captivity
Maladaptation
Social vulnerability analysis for sustainable disaster mitigation planning in coastal Bangladesh
Spinning in circles? A systematic review on the role of theory in social vulnerability, resilience and adaptation research
A discursive review of the textual use of ‘trapped’ in environmental migration studies
Socio-economic consequences of post-disaster reconstruction in hazard-exposed areas
Human and infrastructure exposure to large wildfires in the United States
Climate justice and home-buyout programs
Making sense of the spectrum of climate denial
Who is the climate‐induced trapped figure
Redefining maladaptation
Migration, immobility and displacement outcomes following extreme events
Who defines atoll ‘uninhabitability’
Raising awareness of climate change causes? Cross-national evidence for the normalization of societal risk perception of climate change
Disaster experiences of women with disabilities
Drivers and dimensions of flood risk perceptions
The trap of climate change-induced “natural” disasters and inequality
Beyond the binary of trapped populations and voluntary immobility
Habitability for a connected, unequal and changing world
Crisis or adaptation? Migration and climate change in a context of high mobility
Trapped or on the Springboard? Housing Careers in Large Housing Estates in European Cities
Post-disaster (im)mobility aspiration and capability formation
Pupils on the move
The disaster trap
Staying’ as climate change adaptation strategy
Staying despite disaster risks
Rising Waters Don't Lift All Boats’
The evolution of race and place in geographies of risk and resilience
Waterscapes and hydrosocial territories
The Spatial Dimension of Risk
Hydrosocial territories
Flexible Accumulation Through Urbanization
Beyond Distribution and Proximity
Why populations persist
Understanding Immobility
Insurance as maladaptation
Adaptation interventions and their effect on vulnerability in developing countries
Addressing the risk of maladaptation to climate change
Risk
Small-Area Estimations from Survey Data for High-Resolution Maps of Urban Flood Risk Perception and Evacuation Behavior
Climate change through the lens of intersectionality
Un habitat social en copropriété
Choice and Constraints in Floodplain Occupation
Vulnerability and Place
Governing urban resilience
| Citations per year | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |