ON THE PRODUCTION OF CLIMATE-RELATED LOSS: LAND DISPOSSESSION, INDEBTEDNESS, AND CLIMATE CHANGE IN NORTHEASTERN CAMBODIA
2/8/25

Rows of traditional, colourful, long wooden boats sit on the hard, dry, cracked mud of a river bed in the dry season in Cambodia. Photo: WorldStock / Shutterstock
This article examines the production of climate-related loss, specifically loss of access to land, among Indigenous and ethnic minority farming communities in northeastern Cambodia. We analyse how rapid socio-environmental and political-economic changes are eroding smallholder farmers' capacities to cope with climate impacts and can lead to what we call climate-related loss. We show how climate change compounds and reinforces longstanding patterns of marginalisation and environmental degradation that underpin land dispossession. We argue that interpreting climate-related loss as a product of contemporary and historical socio-environmental transformations of the land is necessary for advancing more situated and differentiated understandings of climate justice.
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