The idea that people are being forced to move because of climate change, and that in the future even more people will be forced to do so, has captured imaginations globally. Cinema screens have been filled with the stories of people whose homes, and indeed entire communities, towns and nation states, are unlikely to withstand rising sea levels; photo exhibitions have created powerful visualisations of what climate change might mean for people across the world; protesters have brandished banners festooned with slogans such as ‘Act Now Or Swim Later!’; artists have set up tents under the signage ‘Climate Refugee Camp’; politicians have held cabinet meetings under water in full diving gear; journalists have brought the idea further into the public consciousness within the pages of a range of newspapers; and entire bookshelves can be filled with the books, not to mention dissertations and university essays, that have been dedicated to the subject.

The majority of these representations of lives touched by climate change are expressions of outrage that the actions of a few will affect the lives of so many, that climate change will have consequences so grave that people will be forced to leave their homes. These contributions to the discourse, infused with sentiments of climate justice and undertones of a fear of people on the move, are the facets of the discourse most often visible to wider society. They have also led to impassioned calls for action to be taken at the global level, where these vibrant, raw and often emotional pleas are transformed into the dry, bureaucratic, technocratic world of international policy making. Here, vocabulary, definitions, punctuation and the allocation of competencies become part of the same discourse. Policy briefings, draft negotiating texts, meetings of people in suits in Bonn, Geneva and New York, initiatives and task forces become entwined with the films, photographs, protests and literature.

At a time when the fear of migration is etched on global society, it is no surprise that different media have tried to make sense of (changing) mobility patterns. Here, actual mobility – the experienced movements of people into and away from different societies – indeed plays a role; however, the perceptions of these movements, the constructions of migrants, and the different stories that accompany movements of people are without a doubt even more important for shaping these cultural goods.