Musings on Modeling Migration (Minimalistically)

Abstract:

For over two years, I have been involved in a transdisciplinary project on modeling migration and environmental changes, which involves modelers, hydrologists, climate scientists, political scientists, and anthropologists. Throughout, I have been torn between my advocacy for simple models as a tool for sharpening questions and building intuition/insights into a complex problem vs the unrelenting complexity of the migration process and its relationship with environmental changes. In this poster, I attempt to organize and synthesize my thoughts and struggle in developing models and a theory on the subject. I will present my thoughts as a mix of questions and a kind of “wish list” of some properties that I think a model of migration and environmental change should have. I will use a minimalistic model that has recently been developed as a starting point (or even a strawman) for discussion on ideas on how to move forward. I welcome criticism and suggestions from the audience.