David Wrathall
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Contact details
Research
PhD title: “’Sobras del Mitch’: tropical storms, social-ecological regime shifts and environmental migration in Garífuna villages of the Honduran Caribbean.”
David’s research investigates the effect of catastrophic hurricanes and flooding to Garífuna villages along the North Coast of Honduras, and the resulting environmental migration from permanently degraded systems. Since attributing individual tropical cyclonic events to climate change becomes problematic, he has searched for an analogue to the extremes of variability that we might expect in climate change scenarios for tropical regions exposed to hurricanes. Utilising recent literature on vulnerability and resilience, David conceptualises environmental migration as an adaptation to shifts in social-ecological coupled regimes. The root causes of flooding exposure originate with political ecologies of the interior: agricultural modernisation policies, a tendency toward land monopolisation and peasant marginalisation, watershed (mis)management and deforestation, and interventions in river hydrology. Ecological tipping points in down-stream coastal environments follow regular patterns from one Garífuna village to the next, including the permanent erasure of inhabitable spaces (fig. 1; see attachment below).
The heart of David’s research deals with specific strategies that forced migrants use, and the timing and sequence of those strategies. He also looks into environmental migrant selectivity: who migrates and who does not and the contributing factors for capacity to migrate. Those who cannot emigrate face a range of development challenges beyond mere impacts to the infrastructure that underpins social and economic activities, and determines access to resources (i.e. schools, community centres, churches, boat landings, mercantile centres, cottage industries, and crop land). Catastrophic flooding also disarticulates a village’s demography, scatters labour forces and undermines the structural lattice that supports social capital to the degree that economies deflate; socio-cultural institutions of material redistribution and reciprocity cease functioning; and customs that serve valuable social functions are discontinued (fig. 2; see attachment).
David’s research investigates the effect of catastrophic hurricanes and flooding to Garífuna villages along the North Coast of Honduras, and the resulting environmental migration from permanently degraded systems. Since attributing individual tropical cyclonic events to climate change becomes problematic, he has searched for an analogue to the extremes of variability that we might expect in climate change scenarios for tropical regions exposed to hurricanes. Utilising recent literature on vulnerability and resilience, David conceptualises environmental migration as an adaptation to shifts in social-ecological coupled regimes. The root causes of flooding exposure originate with political ecologies of the interior: agricultural modernisation policies, a tendency toward land monopolisation and peasant marginalisation, watershed (mis)management and deforestation, and interventions in river hydrology. Ecological tipping points in down-stream coastal environments follow regular patterns from one Garífuna village to the next, including the permanent erasure of inhabitable spaces (fig. 1; see attachment below).
The heart of David’s research deals with specific strategies that forced migrants use, and the timing and sequence of those strategies. He also looks into environmental migrant selectivity: who migrates and who does not and the contributing factors for capacity to migrate. Those who cannot emigrate face a range of development challenges beyond mere impacts to the infrastructure that underpins social and economic activities, and determines access to resources (i.e. schools, community centres, churches, boat landings, mercantile centres, cottage industries, and crop land). Catastrophic flooding also disarticulates a village’s demography, scatters labour forces and undermines the structural lattice that supports social capital to the degree that economies deflate; socio-cultural institutions of material redistribution and reciprocity cease functioning; and customs that serve valuable social functions are discontinued (fig. 2; see attachment).
Future areas for research
David has designed a research project using mobile phones to relay a vulnerable population’s GPS data over time. GPS data can be merged with a variety of ecological data, including time series data on temperatures, precipitation and flood stage reporting, in order to reveal the interaction between stressors and migration behaviours. The mobile platform facilitates data collection on demographic and social characteristics via SMS messaging, as well as qualitative follow-up interviews by phone for high-resolution detail on emergent processes. The project is designed and David has local participants ready to implement it.
Selected publications
Mustafa, D. and D. Wrathall. Indus Basin Floods of 2010: souring of a Faustian bargain? Water Alternatives: (forthcoming).
Wrathall, D. Rev. of Race, Nation, and West Indian Immigration to Honduras, 1890-1940, by Glen Chambers, Bulletin of Latin American Research: (forthcoming).
Wrathall, D. and B. Morris. Confronting environmental migration: a framework for research, policy and practice, UNU-EHS Research Brief Series, Oliver-Smith, A. and K. Warner, eds. Bonn: 2009.
Wrathall, D. U.S. Response to Humanitarian Disaster: Hurricane Mitch in Central America, Project on National Security Reform, Strategic Studies Institute, Army War College. Anapolis: 2008.
Wrathall, D. Rev. of Race, Nation, and West Indian Immigration to Honduras, 1890-1940, by Glen Chambers, Bulletin of Latin American Research: (forthcoming).
Wrathall, D. and B. Morris. Confronting environmental migration: a framework for research, policy and practice, UNU-EHS Research Brief Series, Oliver-Smith, A. and K. Warner, eds. Bonn: 2009.
Wrathall, D. U.S. Response to Humanitarian Disaster: Hurricane Mitch in Central America, Project on National Security Reform, Strategic Studies Institute, Army War College. Anapolis: 2008.
Supervisors
Funding
David is a recipient of the Social Science and Public Policy Studentship, as well as the Overseas Research Studentship.
Biography
David was introduced to the challenge of climate vulnerability during his work for Peace Corps/Habitat for Humanity in La Ceiba, Honduras from 2005 to 2007. In his work with Habitat, USAID and COPECO, he worked to mitigate tropical cyclone risk to vulnerable neighbourhoods along the ferocious Cangrejal river.
Previously, he obtained a master's of public administration and policy from the University of Georgia (2005), during which he worked as an analyst at the Carter Center's Global Development Initiative.He earned a B.A. from Brigham Young University in international development studies (2002), during which he worked on a micro-finance project in Cuzco, Peru, and studied in Cuenca, Ecuador.
Since 2008 in his spare time David has operated a zero-carbon tourism business providing snorkelling tours of delicate reefs in the Honduran Caribbean.
Previously, he obtained a master's of public administration and policy from the University of Georgia (2005), during which he worked as an analyst at the Carter Center's Global Development Initiative.He earned a B.A. from Brigham Young University in international development studies (2002), during which he worked on a micro-finance project in Cuzco, Peru, and studied in Cuenca, Ecuador.
Since 2008 in his spare time David has operated a zero-carbon tourism business providing snorkelling tours of delicate reefs in the Honduran Caribbean.
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