Hugh Roland

Hugh Roland is a PhD student at the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. His research examines how upstream factors linked to capitalism shape vulnerability, environmental adaptation, and migration in geographically isolated places.

His dissertation considers three cases:

  • The Peruvian Amazon
  • The Republic of the Marshall Islands
  • Kiribati

The first chapter conceptualizes and measures flood-related vulnerability in the Peruvian Amazon and evaluates how geographic isolation correlates with social and physical vulnerability and how spatial patterns of risk evolved. The second and third chapters consider vulnerability and internal migration in the Marshall Islands, evaluating how upstream factors linked to capitalism shape contexts and inequalities of vulnerability and influence major migration drivers. The fourth chapter tests how changing environmental and economic circumstances in Kiribati affect migration capacities from extremely geographically isolated islands compared to less isolated islands.