Much of the climate migration research examines whether migration is a successful/adaptive response that reduces climate risk or a failed/maladaptive response that increases risk. However, it has largely failed to examine migration outcomes through migrants’ own eyes, thereby yielding insights that are potentially disconnected from their realities and aspirations. To address this gap, we examine how migrants perceive “success” and “failure” concerning drought-influenced migration. Focusing on migration from agro-pastoral northern Kenya to the City of Nairobi, we conduct semi-structured interviews with 36 migrants who fulfill two criteria: (1) their migration was induced mainly by drought impacts, and (2) they had spent at least one year in Nairobi. We then apply a thematic analysis to identify the main success and failure perceptions. We find that migrants’ success perceptions focus on the support of their households in their places of origin. A similar failure theme pertains to migrants’ inability to achieve this objective. However, another predominant theme emphasizes failure as cultural assimilation in Nairobi, often linked with substance abuse and perceived as a trigger for cascading failures, including migrants’ inability to achieve their adaptation-related objectives. We also show how migrants’ perceptions reveal their preferences for specific adaptations, including seemingly maladaptive ones, and the role of social factors in determining migration’s overall success and/or failure. Accordingly, we argue that research must shift from framing migration narrowly as a climate risk reduction strategy, to conceptualizing it as a process of navigating a landscape of desired and undesired outcomes.

许多气候迁移研究都在考察迁移是一种成功的/适应性的降低气候风险的反应，还是一种失败的/不适应的增加风险的反应。然而，它在很大程度上未能通过移民自己的眼睛来审视移民结果，从而产生了可能与他们的现实和愿望脱节的见解。为了解决这一差距，我们研究了移民如何看待受干旱影响的移民的“成功”和“失败”。重点关注从肯尼亚北部农牧区到内罗毕市的迁移，我们对满足两个标准的 36 名移民进行了半结构化访谈：(1) 他们的迁移主要是由干旱影响引起的，以及 (2) 他们至少花费了在内罗毕一年。然后，我们应用主题分析来确定主要的成功和失败看法。我们发现，流动人口对成功的认知主要集中在原籍地家庭的支持上。一个类似的失败主题与移民无法实现这一目标有关。然而，另一个主要主题强调失败是内罗毕的文化同化，通常与药物滥用有关，并被视为连锁失败的触发因素，包括移民无法实现与适应相关的目标。我们还展示了移民的看法如何揭示他们对特定适应的偏好，包括看似适应不良的适应，以及社会因素在决定移民的整体成功和/或失败中的作用。因此，我们认为研究必须从狭隘地把移民定义为一种减少气候风险的战略，