Abstract
So-called “climate migration” has been presented as a phenomenon causing a multitude of crises on different levels, in the worst case leading to political instability and violence. Oceania is considered a prime example for this assumed linear causality, since sea level rise is threatening to displace large numbers of people. The chapter outlines how global warming impacts migration crises in the Pacific region, focusing on securitization tendencies and critically inquiring into who defines what a crisis is. In order to understand the underlying logic of climate change securitization in the field of human mobility in Oceania, it is necessary to uncover relevant power structures which determine a) who defines what can be considered a (migration) crisis, b) how human mobility challenges preestablished ideas of citizenship, belonging and national identity, and c) how climate change figures in these topical fields and political processes.
