Periodic Reporting for period 1 - PANICOCENE (PANICOCENE. Reframing Climate Change-induced Mobilities)
Berichtszeitraum: 2023-12-01 bis 2025-11-30
Zusammenfassung vom Kontext und den Gesamtzielen des Projekts
PANICOCENE investigates how printed and online news media in the United States and Italy have represented climate change–induced mobilities (CCIM) over the past two decades. The project arises from a growing concern that media coverage often adopts alarmist, securitized, or apocalyptic framings, portraying cross-border movements as inevitable threats and contributing to distorted public perceptions and restrictive policy responses. Against this background, PANICOCENE applies the concept of “mobility justice” to explore how these narratives are constructed and to identify more nuanced and evidence-based alternatives.
The project combines qualitative and mixed methods to analyze the discursive, political, and social dimensions of media representations and their consequences for public understanding. It situates media narratives within broader political and strategic contexts where climate change, migration, and security intersect. Through the analysis of textual data and engagement with journalists, activists, and researchers, PANICOCENE aims to uncover the mechanisms through which certain imaginaries of climate mobility are produced, circulated, and contested.
The project is structured around three interconnected research objectives:
• RO1 (WP1) – Identify major environmental disaster milestones of the past twenty years and map their media coverage to trace how climate-related mobilities have been framed.
• RO2 (WP2) – Analyze the dominant discourses and narratives that produce stereotypical representations of climate migrants through Critical Discourse Analysis, and examine interactions between journalists, activists, and researchers.
• RO3 (WP3) – Develop practical tools for collaborative and responsible reporting, including a Core of Conduct, a Glossary, and an online platform designed to promote constructive journalist–researcher–activist cooperation and foster counter-narratives.
The project adopts a multi-method approach combining desk research, database and media scans, keyword analysis, semi-structured interviews with journalists, activists, and experts, and focus groups to co-design the final tools. The placement with Carta di Roma will support the development of the online platform and the co-creation of communication guidelines, while secondments and training at CIESIN/Columbia and Durham University will strengthen comparative and methodological aspects.
The pathway to impact rests on three levels. At the knowledge level, PANICOCENE will generate new interdisciplinary insights bridging media studies, migration and mobilities research, and environmental sociology, contributing to a deeper understanding of how CCIM are represented. At the practice level, the project’s collaborative outputs—the Core of Conduct, Glossary, and open platform—aim to influence journalistic practice and support more balanced, accurate, and just representations of climate mobility. At the societal and policy level, results will inform ongoing debates on climate-related displacement, support advocacy efforts addressing the absence of an internationally recognized definition for climate migrants, and enhance public and institutional awareness through workshops, policy briefings, and open-access dissemination.
The expected impacts of PANICOCENE are both scientific and societal. Scientifically, it strengthens an interdisciplinary dialogue that connects social sciences and humanities with environmental and policy research. Societally, it addresses the urgent need for responsible media narratives capable of countering misinformation and promoting mobility justice. The social sciences and humanities are integral throughout the project: concepts and methods from sociology, communication studies, discourse analysis, gender and intersectional perspectives, and mobilities research frame its approach, guide its analysis, and underpin its co-production of practical and ethical tools for journalists and activists.
The project combines qualitative and mixed methods to analyze the discursive, political, and social dimensions of media representations and their consequences for public understanding. It situates media narratives within broader political and strategic contexts where climate change, migration, and security intersect. Through the analysis of textual data and engagement with journalists, activists, and researchers, PANICOCENE aims to uncover the mechanisms through which certain imaginaries of climate mobility are produced, circulated, and contested.
The project is structured around three interconnected research objectives:
• RO1 (WP1) – Identify major environmental disaster milestones of the past twenty years and map their media coverage to trace how climate-related mobilities have been framed.
• RO2 (WP2) – Analyze the dominant discourses and narratives that produce stereotypical representations of climate migrants through Critical Discourse Analysis, and examine interactions between journalists, activists, and researchers.
• RO3 (WP3) – Develop practical tools for collaborative and responsible reporting, including a Core of Conduct, a Glossary, and an online platform designed to promote constructive journalist–researcher–activist cooperation and foster counter-narratives.
The project adopts a multi-method approach combining desk research, database and media scans, keyword analysis, semi-structured interviews with journalists, activists, and experts, and focus groups to co-design the final tools. The placement with Carta di Roma will support the development of the online platform and the co-creation of communication guidelines, while secondments and training at CIESIN/Columbia and Durham University will strengthen comparative and methodological aspects.
The pathway to impact rests on three levels. At the knowledge level, PANICOCENE will generate new interdisciplinary insights bridging media studies, migration and mobilities research, and environmental sociology, contributing to a deeper understanding of how CCIM are represented. At the practice level, the project’s collaborative outputs—the Core of Conduct, Glossary, and open platform—aim to influence journalistic practice and support more balanced, accurate, and just representations of climate mobility. At the societal and policy level, results will inform ongoing debates on climate-related displacement, support advocacy efforts addressing the absence of an internationally recognized definition for climate migrants, and enhance public and institutional awareness through workshops, policy briefings, and open-access dissemination.
The expected impacts of PANICOCENE are both scientific and societal. Scientifically, it strengthens an interdisciplinary dialogue that connects social sciences and humanities with environmental and policy research. Societally, it addresses the urgent need for responsible media narratives capable of countering misinformation and promoting mobility justice. The social sciences and humanities are integral throughout the project: concepts and methods from sociology, communication studies, discourse analysis, gender and intersectional perspectives, and mobilities research frame its approach, guide its analysis, and underpin its co-production of practical and ethical tools for journalists and activists.
Arbeit, die ab Beginn des Projekts bis zum Ende des durch den Bericht erfassten Berichtszeitraums geleistet wurde, und die wichtigsten bis dahin erzielten Ergebnisse
The PANICOCENE project unfolds as a critical interdisciplinary investigation into the narrative architectures that characterize climate change-induced migration, with particular attention to how these narratives infuse technical, scientific, and societal responses with a pervasive logic of panic. Its underlying ambition has been not only to map the discursive regimes that sustain the so-called "panicocene" but also to interrogate their generative mechanisms—showing how scientific, institutional, and cultural actors actively participate in producing and circulating alarmist framings of climate mobility.
Central to the work performed is the elaboration of the "panicocene" concept itself (RO1: Framework Activities and Conceptual Development). This analytical framework rethinks the proliferation of panic as more than a simple affective excess; rather, it demonstrates that panic is a structured narrative logic, shaping the ways in which climate change and mobility are communicated, governed, and problematized. Through an extensive qualitative and quantitative literature review, the project identifies the intersections—and, just as importantly, the gaps—between climate justice and mobility justice, two traditions that have rarely been dialogued in existing scholarship. This intersectional lens, refined across transnational contexts, allows for a robust theorization of climate (im)mobility as a planetary phenomenon rooted in historical and structural inequalities. The framework integrates climate justice and mobility justice perspectives that have largely developed separately, demonstrating their necessary theoretical and practical connection and advancing understanding by centering climate immobility alongside migration to reveal how those unable to move due to environmental change face compounded vulnerabilities that remain systematically invisible in dominant policy and public discourse. The theoretical contribution has been published in the open-access monograph Panicocene. Narrazioni su cambiamenti climatici, regimi di mobilità e migrazioni ambientali (FrancoAngeli, 2023).
A substantial aspect of the research has comprised a systematic mapping of major environmental disasters across two decades and across both Italian and United States media contexts. This mapping endeavor, still within RO1, has not merely catalogued events but has traced the evolution of framing strategies, particularly the ways disasters are linked to patterns of human displacement, mobility, and forced migration. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) was employed to parse thousands of texts from major outlets including Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica, and Il Sole 24 Ore in Italy, alongside The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Yorker in the United States, meticulously revealing how climate-induced migration is construed through crisis, securitization, victimhood, and—on rare occasions—justice-oriented language. What emerges from this rigorous, empirical work is a robust confirmation of the panicocene's hypothesis: that panic-driven logics are deeply embedded in both national and international media ecosystems and exert significant symbolic influence on public understanding and policy formation. The research has yielded peer-reviewed open access publications including "The Panicocene in Italian media. Discourse analysis of climate migration narratives" (Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, 2025).
Beyond textual and discursive analysis, the project moved into deeper terrain through its engagement with stakeholder perspectives (RO2: Qualitative Analysis, Media Narratives and Stakeholder Perspectives). This second research objective recognized that panic is not simply the product of market-driven media sensationalism, but rather the outcome of complex negotiations between institutional constraints, ethical dilemmas, and professional identities among diverse actors. The research encompassed nearly fifty semi-structured interviews with three primary stakeholder groups: twenty-one researchers from multiple disciplines (geography, sociology, political science, environmental science, anthropology, communication studies), eighteen journalists from mainstream, international, specialized, and alternative media outlets, and ten activists and cultural producers engaged in climate justice and migrant rights work. These interviews lent qualitative depth to the mapping of panic narratives and revealed that panic emerges not from individual malice but from systemic pressures and professional constraints. Notably, even humanitarian and activist campaigns, despite their predisposition toward justice, were found to reproduce panic framings that re-inscribe 'othering' and vulnerability hierarchies.
The RO2 investigations further encompassed four interconnected participatory seminars and workshops held between December 2023 and May 2024—collectively termed the "Beyond Panic" series—which functioned simultaneously as research methods and interventions. These events, including "Beyond Panic: The Others of the Climate Crisis" (with researchers), "Journalism and Climate Mobilities: Who owns the narratives?" (with journalists, offering professional accreditation credits), "Bridging activism on mobilities justice and activism on climate justice" (with activists and artists), and "Academia, Activism, Arts and Journalism re-envisioning climate mobilities" (synthesis event), generated empirical data while facilitating collaborative knowledge production and capacity building across sectors. These workshops became fertile sites for methodological innovation as well. During these events, the project developed and piloted a creative methodological approach termed "Imaginary wor(l)ds"—a technique using fictional storytelling to explore future imaginaries of climate (im)mobility and borders beyond deterministic panic scenarios. Participants were invited to create speculative stories set in climate-changed futures, exploring alternative configurations of mobility, borders, and justice. Analysis of seventy-eight original written contributions (forty-three from academics, twenty-six from media workers, nine from activists) revealed that dominant panic discourse constrains imaginative capacity, making it difficult to envision futures beyond crisis and catastrophe. However, the creative exercise also revealed desires for and glimmers of alternative possibilities, with prominent themes of adaptation, resilience, and collective activism emerging. Notably, the content analysis demonstrated a predominant focus on internal mobility rather than international migration and revealed innovative non-human perspectives. Furthermore, the "Climate Ecologies: Responses to the Panicocene" exhibition at Huddersfield University, opening in September 2025, translated this research into accessible cultural engagement, showcasing artistic responses to panic discourse and demonstrating cross-sector collaboration.
The final research objective (RO3: Instruments for Collaboration, Knowledge Production and Practical Interventions) represents the project's deliberate translation of critical research into practical resources for responsible climate mobility communication. This objective has been operationalized through the generation of concrete tools and platforms designed to catalyze alternative practices across multiple sectors. The PANICOCENE website (https://reimaginingmobilities.org/panicocene/(öffnet in neuem Fenster)) functions simultaneously as a knowledge repository, call publication hub, and counter-narrative showcase, designed to promote constructive collaboration among journalists, researchers, activists, and other stakeholders. This digital infrastructure is being populated with core project outputs and resources for ongoing use beyond the project timeline.
Equally significant is the development of a Critical Glossary on Climate Immobilities—a collaborative glossary project co-edited with David Durand-Delacre (UNU-EHS) and Jemima Baada (University of British Columbia) for publication as a special issue with the Climate and Development Journal (Taylor & Francis). This glossary addresses a substantial gap in scholarly literature by centering the concept of climate immobility—the inability or constrained ability to move in response to environmental change—which remains undertheorized despite representing a vital phenomenon affecting significant populations globally. Each glossary entry provides critical analysis challenging dominant framings, engages relevant scholarship, and draws implications for policy and practice, covering concepts including the Health Dimension, Mobile Commoning, Planetary Justice, Hostile Environment, Race, Green Colonialism, Place Attachment, Human Agency, Extractivism, and Governance.
Through RO3 activities, the project further established the ECMN Workstream on Media Representations, Narratives and Visual Aesthetics of Climate (Im)mobilities with international partners Sophia Brown (Durham University) and David Durand-Delacre (UNU-EHS), creating sustainable infrastructure for ongoing collaborative research extending beyond the project timeline. The project has also contributed to scholarly networks through a book chapter on "Climate Justice and Climate Mobility: International Migration from Central America and West Africa" in the Columbia University Press volume Climate Justice Now! - Multidisciplinary Perspectives on the Climate Crisis (2025), and through methodological contributions published in the Elgar Encyclopedia of Global Migration (2025).
Underpinning all these research objectives has been an extensive process of knowledge transfer and capacity building across multiple institutions. Training and collaborative activities at Columbia University during the outgoing phase, including engagement with the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), the Climate Mobility Network, and the Climate School's interdisciplinary research community, enabled bridging of social and natural science perspectives on climate mobility. Similarly, the secondment at Durham University facilitated deeper engagement with critical race theory, postcolonial approaches, and genealogical methods for policy analysis through collaboration with Professor Andrew Baldwin and the Department of Geography. These experiences resulted in advanced research skills, expanded international networks, and interdisciplinary competencies that fundamentally reshaped the scholarly contribution and career trajectory of the fellow.
The project has achieved extensive dissemination across academic, professional, policy, and public spheres through presentations at major international conferences (IMISCOE, ECMN, Migration and Human Rights Conference at Columbia University, Cultural Studies Conferences, and others), multiple invited lectures at leading universities across Italy and North America, and engagement through podcasts, radio interviews, and film series. Teaching integration has reached hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students through lectures across multiple universities. This comprehensive dissemination and engagement strategy ensures that research findings and methodological innovations become embedded within scholarly networks, professional communities, and public discourse, maximizing the project's potential impact beyond the funding period.
Central to the work performed is the elaboration of the "panicocene" concept itself (RO1: Framework Activities and Conceptual Development). This analytical framework rethinks the proliferation of panic as more than a simple affective excess; rather, it demonstrates that panic is a structured narrative logic, shaping the ways in which climate change and mobility are communicated, governed, and problematized. Through an extensive qualitative and quantitative literature review, the project identifies the intersections—and, just as importantly, the gaps—between climate justice and mobility justice, two traditions that have rarely been dialogued in existing scholarship. This intersectional lens, refined across transnational contexts, allows for a robust theorization of climate (im)mobility as a planetary phenomenon rooted in historical and structural inequalities. The framework integrates climate justice and mobility justice perspectives that have largely developed separately, demonstrating their necessary theoretical and practical connection and advancing understanding by centering climate immobility alongside migration to reveal how those unable to move due to environmental change face compounded vulnerabilities that remain systematically invisible in dominant policy and public discourse. The theoretical contribution has been published in the open-access monograph Panicocene. Narrazioni su cambiamenti climatici, regimi di mobilità e migrazioni ambientali (FrancoAngeli, 2023).
A substantial aspect of the research has comprised a systematic mapping of major environmental disasters across two decades and across both Italian and United States media contexts. This mapping endeavor, still within RO1, has not merely catalogued events but has traced the evolution of framing strategies, particularly the ways disasters are linked to patterns of human displacement, mobility, and forced migration. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) was employed to parse thousands of texts from major outlets including Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica, and Il Sole 24 Ore in Italy, alongside The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Yorker in the United States, meticulously revealing how climate-induced migration is construed through crisis, securitization, victimhood, and—on rare occasions—justice-oriented language. What emerges from this rigorous, empirical work is a robust confirmation of the panicocene's hypothesis: that panic-driven logics are deeply embedded in both national and international media ecosystems and exert significant symbolic influence on public understanding and policy formation. The research has yielded peer-reviewed open access publications including "The Panicocene in Italian media. Discourse analysis of climate migration narratives" (Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, 2025).
Beyond textual and discursive analysis, the project moved into deeper terrain through its engagement with stakeholder perspectives (RO2: Qualitative Analysis, Media Narratives and Stakeholder Perspectives). This second research objective recognized that panic is not simply the product of market-driven media sensationalism, but rather the outcome of complex negotiations between institutional constraints, ethical dilemmas, and professional identities among diverse actors. The research encompassed nearly fifty semi-structured interviews with three primary stakeholder groups: twenty-one researchers from multiple disciplines (geography, sociology, political science, environmental science, anthropology, communication studies), eighteen journalists from mainstream, international, specialized, and alternative media outlets, and ten activists and cultural producers engaged in climate justice and migrant rights work. These interviews lent qualitative depth to the mapping of panic narratives and revealed that panic emerges not from individual malice but from systemic pressures and professional constraints. Notably, even humanitarian and activist campaigns, despite their predisposition toward justice, were found to reproduce panic framings that re-inscribe 'othering' and vulnerability hierarchies.
The RO2 investigations further encompassed four interconnected participatory seminars and workshops held between December 2023 and May 2024—collectively termed the "Beyond Panic" series—which functioned simultaneously as research methods and interventions. These events, including "Beyond Panic: The Others of the Climate Crisis" (with researchers), "Journalism and Climate Mobilities: Who owns the narratives?" (with journalists, offering professional accreditation credits), "Bridging activism on mobilities justice and activism on climate justice" (with activists and artists), and "Academia, Activism, Arts and Journalism re-envisioning climate mobilities" (synthesis event), generated empirical data while facilitating collaborative knowledge production and capacity building across sectors. These workshops became fertile sites for methodological innovation as well. During these events, the project developed and piloted a creative methodological approach termed "Imaginary wor(l)ds"—a technique using fictional storytelling to explore future imaginaries of climate (im)mobility and borders beyond deterministic panic scenarios. Participants were invited to create speculative stories set in climate-changed futures, exploring alternative configurations of mobility, borders, and justice. Analysis of seventy-eight original written contributions (forty-three from academics, twenty-six from media workers, nine from activists) revealed that dominant panic discourse constrains imaginative capacity, making it difficult to envision futures beyond crisis and catastrophe. However, the creative exercise also revealed desires for and glimmers of alternative possibilities, with prominent themes of adaptation, resilience, and collective activism emerging. Notably, the content analysis demonstrated a predominant focus on internal mobility rather than international migration and revealed innovative non-human perspectives. Furthermore, the "Climate Ecologies: Responses to the Panicocene" exhibition at Huddersfield University, opening in September 2025, translated this research into accessible cultural engagement, showcasing artistic responses to panic discourse and demonstrating cross-sector collaboration.
The final research objective (RO3: Instruments for Collaboration, Knowledge Production and Practical Interventions) represents the project's deliberate translation of critical research into practical resources for responsible climate mobility communication. This objective has been operationalized through the generation of concrete tools and platforms designed to catalyze alternative practices across multiple sectors. The PANICOCENE website (https://reimaginingmobilities.org/panicocene/(öffnet in neuem Fenster)) functions simultaneously as a knowledge repository, call publication hub, and counter-narrative showcase, designed to promote constructive collaboration among journalists, researchers, activists, and other stakeholders. This digital infrastructure is being populated with core project outputs and resources for ongoing use beyond the project timeline.
Equally significant is the development of a Critical Glossary on Climate Immobilities—a collaborative glossary project co-edited with David Durand-Delacre (UNU-EHS) and Jemima Baada (University of British Columbia) for publication as a special issue with the Climate and Development Journal (Taylor & Francis). This glossary addresses a substantial gap in scholarly literature by centering the concept of climate immobility—the inability or constrained ability to move in response to environmental change—which remains undertheorized despite representing a vital phenomenon affecting significant populations globally. Each glossary entry provides critical analysis challenging dominant framings, engages relevant scholarship, and draws implications for policy and practice, covering concepts including the Health Dimension, Mobile Commoning, Planetary Justice, Hostile Environment, Race, Green Colonialism, Place Attachment, Human Agency, Extractivism, and Governance.
Through RO3 activities, the project further established the ECMN Workstream on Media Representations, Narratives and Visual Aesthetics of Climate (Im)mobilities with international partners Sophia Brown (Durham University) and David Durand-Delacre (UNU-EHS), creating sustainable infrastructure for ongoing collaborative research extending beyond the project timeline. The project has also contributed to scholarly networks through a book chapter on "Climate Justice and Climate Mobility: International Migration from Central America and West Africa" in the Columbia University Press volume Climate Justice Now! - Multidisciplinary Perspectives on the Climate Crisis (2025), and through methodological contributions published in the Elgar Encyclopedia of Global Migration (2025).
Underpinning all these research objectives has been an extensive process of knowledge transfer and capacity building across multiple institutions. Training and collaborative activities at Columbia University during the outgoing phase, including engagement with the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), the Climate Mobility Network, and the Climate School's interdisciplinary research community, enabled bridging of social and natural science perspectives on climate mobility. Similarly, the secondment at Durham University facilitated deeper engagement with critical race theory, postcolonial approaches, and genealogical methods for policy analysis through collaboration with Professor Andrew Baldwin and the Department of Geography. These experiences resulted in advanced research skills, expanded international networks, and interdisciplinary competencies that fundamentally reshaped the scholarly contribution and career trajectory of the fellow.
The project has achieved extensive dissemination across academic, professional, policy, and public spheres through presentations at major international conferences (IMISCOE, ECMN, Migration and Human Rights Conference at Columbia University, Cultural Studies Conferences, and others), multiple invited lectures at leading universities across Italy and North America, and engagement through podcasts, radio interviews, and film series. Teaching integration has reached hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students through lectures across multiple universities. This comprehensive dissemination and engagement strategy ensures that research findings and methodological innovations become embedded within scholarly networks, professional communities, and public discourse, maximizing the project's potential impact beyond the funding period.
Fortschritte, die über den aktuellen Stand der Technik hinausgehen und voraussichtliche potenzielle Auswirkungen (einschließlich der bis dato erzielten sozioökonomischen Auswirkungen und weiter gefassten gesellschaftlichen Auswirkungen des Projekts)
PANICOCENE's most significant scientific achievement lies in the articulation of the panicocene framework itself, which advances theoretical and empirical understanding of climate-induced mobility beyond prevailing paradigms. Where prior research may have cataloged migration drivers or critiqued media framing in isolation, PANICOCENE proposes panic as a governing rationality, a coherent discursive system that integrates security, humanitarianism, and emotional appeal—thereby shaping not only representation but governance and possible futures.
The systematic analysis of media, buttressed by imaginative and participatory methods, has yielded original insights into the persistence of panic-driven framings even as scientific knowledge of climate migration grows more nuanced. The project demonstrates that panic is not ephemeral or incidental to climate mobility discourse; it is persistent, reproducible, and deeply enmeshed in the structural processes by which narratives become policy. Moreover, empirical findings highlight national differences even as they reveal transnational patterns, indicating that while panic is systemic, its variations illuminate points of potential intervention and alternative narrative formation. The comparative analysis across Italian and US media systems, despite their distinct political landscapes, reveals convergence in panic deployments—a finding that suggests structural rather than merely ideological drivers of such framings.
Another domain in which the project moves beyond the state of the art is methodological. By employing creative techniques such as future storytelling, workshops that explicitly combine artistic, academic, and activist perspectives, and open-access datasets that detail not just media but lived experiences and imaginative capacities of diverse communities, PANICOCENE expands the toolkit for climate mobility researchers. It demonstrates that to apprehend the social life of panic, one must not only analyze texts but also participate in and facilitate the creation of new imaginaries. In doing so, it shows that alternative futures—those not saturated by panic—remain possible, though often fragile and underrepresented. The innovation of the "Imaginary wor(l)ds" method, yielding seventy-eight speculative narratives analyzed for their geographic, temporal, and agential dimensions, provides a model for future research seeking to understand not merely what people fear or how they are represented, but how they imagine and desire differently.
Yet PANICOCENE also identifies clear challenges and needs if these results are to be taken up further. Continued comparative research is required to understand panic narratives in diverse linguistic and regional settings. The existing climate migration scholarship exhibits a persistent geographic blind spot: research has largely concentrated either on international climate mobility or on internal migration within Global South territories, yet the analysis of climate migration processes within the Global North remains substantially underdeveloped, a gap that my submitted ERC Starting Grant project seeks to address. Finally, there is pressing value in institutionalizing training for journalists and other communicators, so that responsible reporting can be mainstreamed beyond isolated programs or individual efforts. At a structural level, the adoption and maintenance of standards such as glossaries and ethical codes depend on sustained advocacy and engagement with professional bodies, requiring resources and institutional commitments that extend beyond single-project timelines.
The systematic analysis of media, buttressed by imaginative and participatory methods, has yielded original insights into the persistence of panic-driven framings even as scientific knowledge of climate migration grows more nuanced. The project demonstrates that panic is not ephemeral or incidental to climate mobility discourse; it is persistent, reproducible, and deeply enmeshed in the structural processes by which narratives become policy. Moreover, empirical findings highlight national differences even as they reveal transnational patterns, indicating that while panic is systemic, its variations illuminate points of potential intervention and alternative narrative formation. The comparative analysis across Italian and US media systems, despite their distinct political landscapes, reveals convergence in panic deployments—a finding that suggests structural rather than merely ideological drivers of such framings.
Another domain in which the project moves beyond the state of the art is methodological. By employing creative techniques such as future storytelling, workshops that explicitly combine artistic, academic, and activist perspectives, and open-access datasets that detail not just media but lived experiences and imaginative capacities of diverse communities, PANICOCENE expands the toolkit for climate mobility researchers. It demonstrates that to apprehend the social life of panic, one must not only analyze texts but also participate in and facilitate the creation of new imaginaries. In doing so, it shows that alternative futures—those not saturated by panic—remain possible, though often fragile and underrepresented. The innovation of the "Imaginary wor(l)ds" method, yielding seventy-eight speculative narratives analyzed for their geographic, temporal, and agential dimensions, provides a model for future research seeking to understand not merely what people fear or how they are represented, but how they imagine and desire differently.
Yet PANICOCENE also identifies clear challenges and needs if these results are to be taken up further. Continued comparative research is required to understand panic narratives in diverse linguistic and regional settings. The existing climate migration scholarship exhibits a persistent geographic blind spot: research has largely concentrated either on international climate mobility or on internal migration within Global South territories, yet the analysis of climate migration processes within the Global North remains substantially underdeveloped, a gap that my submitted ERC Starting Grant project seeks to address. Finally, there is pressing value in institutionalizing training for journalists and other communicators, so that responsible reporting can be mainstreamed beyond isolated programs or individual efforts. At a structural level, the adoption and maintenance of standards such as glossaries and ethical codes depend on sustained advocacy and engagement with professional bodies, requiring resources and institutional commitments that extend beyond single-project timelines.