Climate-Related Displacement and Diversification in South Africa: Changing Patterns of Migration and Peri-Urban Settlements

This study explores the changing patterns of climate-related displacement and its impacts on urban periphery dynamics in South Africa. The study hypothesises that climate-induced displacement significantly impacts a shift in demographic forms and other aspects of diversifications and peri-urban settlements in Africa. With urban growth and increasing urban pressure, urban peripheries are now hubs for climate and other related migrants. There is a significant gap in our understanding of how these dynamics and complexities associated with climate-related displacement and diversifications affect urban peripheries dynamics in Southern Africa. The study was conducted in Katlehong Township, a large peri-urban settlements in the larger Johannesburg metropolitan area of South Africa. Katlehong, among similar others in South Africa, has complex histories related to the country's pre-and-post apartheid era sociopolitical dynamics, and its specific geographical and spatial location tends to attract many internal and cross-border migrants from the Southern African region and beyond. The study adopted a qualitative approach, utilising data from ethnographic observations, semi-structured in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with internal, regional and international climate displaced migrants in the Township. Findings from the study offer insights into the impacts of climate-related displacement on the social fabrics, cultural and demographic forms and influences, livelihood strategies and perspectives, and people’s sense of place in the context of the evolving peri-urbanisation in the study locations. They inform future planning to manage conflict and inspire social cohesion among the evolving diverse migrants in the Southern African region. The project's findings are also crucial considering the various events of xenophobia in South Africa and Johannesburg in the past years, the most notable ones which happened in 2008, 2015 and the recent one in 2025.