‘They are supposed to stay home’: Examining the politics of adaptation and (im)mobility in Northern Ghana

This chapter examines efforts to limit climate-related migration through adaptation efforts in northern Ghana, specifically irrigation schemes linked to the ‘One Village-One Dam’ initiative. To better understand the politics and implications of these initiatives, the chapter combines the ‘politics of adaptation’ and the ‘climate mobility’ literatures in a novel analytical approach to examine how political dynamics across scales and actors contribute to the formulation, contestation and differentiated outcomes of efforts to manage climate mobility through adaptation. Policy efforts to limit climate-related mobility through in situ adaptation programmes will likely be challenging as they are unlikely to address the many and diverse risks people face, especially if they enter into a setting of contested mobility practices and fail to address competing aspirations and needs across community groups.