Farmers’ everyday political work at the nexus of climate and conflict in Eastern DR Congo

Although climate change has already had severe impacts across the Global South, communities facing the compounding effects of conflict and climate change are particularly at risk. Despite global attention paid to the protracted conflicts shaping the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), there is a need to understand how climate change, coupled with conflict dynamics, shapes people’s lives, livelihoods, and values. This study draws upon oral histories and key informant interviews to understand farmers’ lived experiences at the confluence of armed conflict and increasing weather extremes in Eastern DRC. This revealed that farmers’ socio-environmental relationships and their grounding in what they find meaningful served to guide the reorganization of their lives during and in the aftermath of the conflict. Despite extraordinary pressures on life and livelihood, and with little recourse to formal authorities, many farmers took responsibility for protecting their land and relied on local knowledge systems to restore what was damaged in the conflict and extreme weather events. Attending to these experiences can inform how farmers are able to realize their ideas of a good life, with the potential to reveal the everyday issues people perceive as important in shaping their lived experiences at the conflict-climate nexus.