„Semarang is like sugar“: on the complex relation of environmental change and migration

Abstract

As an article in the Indonesian newspaper Jakarta Post stated in March 2018, “Indonesia is among the countries with the highest risk of being affected by climate change as many of its islands could disappear from rising sea levels.” The south-east Asian country is among the ten countries with the highest population worldwide and consists of more than 17,000 islands. Using the example of the coastal city of Semarang in Central Java, Indonesia, this paper seeks to understand how coastal populations in Indonesia deal with consequences of climate change.