Climate-related loss and damage in contexts of agrarian change: differentiated sense of loss from extreme weather events in northeast Cambodia

Abstract

The uneven burden of climate-related losses and damages and its implications for equity and social justice are receiving growing attention in science and policy. Smallholder farmers, indigenous groups, and ethnic minorities are often identified as particularly vulnerable and likely to experience a greater burden of climate-related loss and damage. However, limited attention has been paid to experiences of climate-related loss and damage in contexts of agrarian change and related struggles, especially around land. In this paper, we analyse experiences of climate-related loss amongst smallholder farmers in Ratanakiri province, northeast Cambodia. We derive an analytical framework from political economy of vulnerability and sociology of loss to explain farmers’ sense of loss from climate change and foreground intangible dimensions of climate-related loss. We use a mixed-methods approach with a hierarchical regression analysis of a household survey (n = 295), individual interviews, and focus group discussions across eleven villages. We find that a higher number of livelihood activities, greater values related to land, types of negative impacts experienced, and stronger perception of changes in extreme weather events are associated with a greater sense of loss. Meanwhile, a higher ability to repay loans and secure land tenure is associated with a lower sense of loss. Our results demonstrate how experiential, relational, and normative dimensions of climate-related loss are co-produced through processes of agrarian change such as financialization and histories of land struggles (i.e. through debt failure and fear of loss of access to land). This study contributes a deeper understanding of people’s lived experiences of loss arising from climate change impacts in agrarian contexts and their implications for climate justice.

Full text

Vol.:(0123456789)
Regional Environmental Change (2024) 24:161
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-024-02314-4
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Climate‑related loss anddamage incontexts ofagrarian change:
differentiated sense ofloss fromextreme weather events innortheast
Cambodia
KellyDorkenoo1 · MoninNong2· JoelPersson3· NavinChea4· MurrayScown1
Received: 23 October 2023 / Accepted: 3 September 2024 / Published online: 22 October 2024
© The Author(s) 2024
Abstract
The uneven burden of climate-related losses and damages and its implications for equity and social justice are receiving
growing attention in science and policy. Smallholder farmers, indigenous groups, and ethnic minorities are often identified
as particularly vulnerable and likely to experience a greater burden of climate-related loss and damage. However, limited
attention has been paid to experiences of climate-related loss and damage in contexts of agrarian change and relatedstruggles,
especially around land. In this paper, we analyse experiences of climate-related loss amongst smallholder farmers in Ratanakiri
province, northeast Cambodia. We derive an analytical framework from political economy of vulnerability and sociology of
loss to explain farmers’ sense of loss from climate change and foreground intangible dimensions of climate-related loss. We
use a mixed-methods approach with a hierarchical regression analysis of a household survey (n = 295), individual interviews,
and focus group discussions across eleven villages. We find that a higher number of livelihood activities,greater values related
to land, types of negative impacts experienced, and stronger perception of changes in extreme weather events are associated
with a greater sense of loss. Meanwhile, a higher ability to repay loans and secure land tenure is associated with a lower sense
of loss. Our results demonstrate how experiential, relational, and normative dimensions of climate-related loss are co-produced
through processes of agrarian change such as financialization and histories of land struggles (i.e. throughdebt failure and fear
of loss ofaccess to land). This study contributes a deeper understanding of people’s lived experiences of loss arising from
climate change impacts in agrarian contexts and their implications for climate justice.
Keywords Climate change· Loss and damage· Agrarian change· Climate justice· Cambodia
Introduction
There is growing evidence that climate change exacer-
bates societal inequalities, leading to a greater burden
of harm—or loss and damage—for some groups, with
important implications for equity and social justice globally
(IPCC2022b). Low-income and least-developed countries,
whose economies rely to a higher degree on climate-sensi-
tive sectors such as agriculture and fisheries but who have
contributed minimally to climate change, are advocating for
recognition and compensation for climate injustices under
the Loss and Damage1 policy framework (Boyd etal. 2021;
UNEP 2022; Warner and Weisberg 2023). In research and
policy discussions, loss and damage broadly refers to the
negative climate change–related impacts or harm that could
Communicated by Chandni Singh
* Kelly Dorkenoo
kelly.dorkenoo@lucsus.lu.se
1 Lund University Centre forSustainability Studies, Lund
University, Lund, Sweden
2 Cambodia Development Resource Institute, PhnomPenh,
Cambodia
3 Department ofFood andResource Economics, Copenhagen
University, Copenhagen, Denmark
4 Faculty ofForestry Science, Royal University ofAgriculture,
PhnomPenh, Cambodia
1 “Loss and Damage” (capitalised letters) or L&D refers to the term
and political debate in global policy processes, whereas scholarship
or research on “loss and damage” (lowercase letters) refers to the
body of knowledge on the losses and damages or harms to individu-
als, societies, or environment resulting from climate-related impacts.
(IPCC 2022a) In this paper, we refer to climate-related loss as encom-
passing both losses and damages associated with climate change.
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Regional Environmental Change (2024) 24:161161 Page 2 of 18
not be adapted to or avoided (Mechler etal. 2019; Warner
and Geest 2013). For people reliant on rural and land-based
livelihoods, a changing climate often means more frequent
and intense weather events leading to significant losses rang-
ing from destroyed crops and reduced food intake to disap-
pearing ways of life.
Smallholder farmers, Indigenous groups, and ethnic
minorities, who make up a large portion of populations in
many agrarian contexts in the Global South, are predomi-
nantly identified as particularly vulnerable to climate change
and thus disproportionatelyexperiencing loss and damage
(Dorkenoo etal. 2022). Climate change is affecting how
these groups deal with climate variability and shocks by
causing more intense and frequent extreme weather events
(Chhogyel etal. 2020). These changes occur within con-
texts where diverse socio-political and economic processes
are altering dynamics and relations of production through
land, property, labour, and livelihoods (Akram-Lodhi and
Kay 2010a, 2010b; Bernstein 2010). This includes regu-
latory constraints on forest use, land titling, financializa-
tion, large-scale land acquisitions, and expansion of carbon
market mechanisms and afforestation programmes, which
often cause extensive socio-ecological change and losses
for affected populations, including the disappearance of
landscapes and ways of life (Borras etal. 2020; Borras and
Franco 2012; Dell’Angelo etal. 2021; Hall 2013; Li 2010).
Such occurrences have for instance been documented in
research on state territorialisation and advancement of capi-
talism at forest-agriculture frontiers (Peluso 2009; Peluso
and Lund 2011; Rasmussen and Lund 2018; Tsing 2003).
There is growing evidence that in many regions, climate
change impacts compound outcomes of extractive and devel-
opment projects on Indigenous People’s lifeways, lands, and
rights (Reyes-García etal. 2024; Scheidel etal. 2023; UN
Climate Change—Events, 2023a).
The concept of vulnerability has dominated studies on
the impacts of climate change in rural and agrarian settings
(Adger 2006; Olsson etal. 2014) and, relatedly, conceptu-
alisations of climate-related loss and damage (Gach 2019;
Van Der Geest and Warner 2014). A large body of schol-
arship shows how vulnerability and outcomes of climate
impacts are rooted in social, political, and economic struc-
tures maintaining inequitable distribution of, access to, and
control over resources (Barnett 2020; Ciplet 2017; Kelly and
Adger 2000; Ribot 2014, 2022). Several aspects influenc-
ing climate vulnerability are highlighted in the literature,
including power differentials, governance, knowledge, and
reliance on environmental resources for sociocultural and
economic well-being (Adger 1999; Thomas etal. 2019). In
agrarian settings, political-economic processes that recon-
figure access to and use of natural resources—specifically
land—as well as income and labour relations shape how
different social groups experience and respond to extreme
weather events (Ribot 2014; Taylor 2014; Watts 1983; Yeh
etal. 2014). These dynamics of agrarian change alter social
relations and accentuate differentiation and marginalisa-
tion, often leading to the formation of social classes through
changing labour patterns based on wage-based work, capi-
tal accumulation, increased access to loans, and varying
reliance on on-farm activities and other forms of non-farm
income (Oya 2010). Social differentiation occurs not only
through class but also through changes in social relations
based on gender, ethnicity, age, religion, and race, which
condition access to resources (Borras etal. 2022; Ribot and
Peluso 2003).
While livelihood diversification is often viewed as an
important means of adapting and reducing vulnerabilityto
climatic risks, it is important to distinguish between diver-
sification for adaptation and for coping (Antwi-Agyei etal.
2014; Eriksen etal. 2005). Historically rooted processes of
social differentiation and changing access to key resources
interact with the effects of climate change to exacerbate
existing and produce new forms of exclusion and inclusion
that potentially push people towards unfavourable activi-
ties (Marty etal. 2023). Engagement in multiple livelihood
activities could thereby signal distress diversification and
point to processes that undermine adaptive capacities. For
example, Eriksen etal. (2005) found that being able to focus
on one favoured activity reduced vulnerability while engag-
ing in many activities, sometimes intermittently, increased it.
Given the importance of agroecological activities like farm-
ing, livestock rearing, foraging, and environmental product
collection in agrarian settings, and that these are more prone
to climatic stress, reliance on multiple land-based or envi-
ronmental livelihood activities could signal higher risks of
climate-related loss.
Scholarship on climate-related loss and damage calls
for greater attention to loss as a distinct object of analysis
beyond the lens of vulnerability, which is not only material
but also rooted in relations, place-based experiences, and
values. Barnett etal. (2016) describe that loss “arises when
people are dispossessed of things that they value, and for
which there are no commensurable substitutes” (p. 977).
A growing body of literature highlights the multiple intan-
gible dimensions that constitute climate-related loss, often
symbolic and affective aspects such as place attachment and
identity, which are challenging to capture and therefore often
omitted in science and policy (Azfa etal. 2020; Barnett etal.
2016; Henrique etal. 2022; Preston 2017; Tschakert etal.
2019). Loss can emerge through feelings of grief and emo-
tions associated with the threat that climate change repre-
sents to phenomena and objects that people value and their
overall social, economic, and cultural well-being (Ayeb-
Karlsson 2020; Ayeb-Karlsson etal. 2023; Clissold etal.
2022; Marshall etal. 2019; McNamara etal. 2021). It is
thus closely tied to the way people experience and perceive
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Regional Environmental Change (2024) 24:161 Page 3 of 18 161
climate change and extreme weather, which can vary sig-
nificantly across spatiotemporal scales (Mehta etal. 2019).
Increasingly, scholars and practitioners alike are highlight-
ing the shortcomings of vulnerability as a dominant frame
to understand climate-related loss; in particular, its inabil-
ity to capture the non-material and non-economic dimen-
sions of loss, and associated normative and justice implica-
tions (Naylor and Ford 2023; UN Climate Change—Events
2023b). Hence, intangible dimensions such as experience,
perceptions, and values are increasingly seen as critical to
more holistic and situated approaches to loss and climate
justice (Newell etal. 2021; Tschakert etal. 2017).
In contexts with expanding financialization and rapid
land-use change, even subtle and less visible forms of cli-
matic stress can lead to detrimental effects on the land and
people’s ability to derive benefits from it. As climate change
intertwines with capitalist development, often through a
“mundane and unspectacular process”, agrarian risks are
incrementally exacerbated and transformed to produce a
“generalized climate of uncertainty” (Matthan 2022, p. 3).
Repeated exposure to climate impacts in contexts where
soil quality and productivity are already eroding gradu-
ally reduces capacities to cope and recover, and push some
smallholder farmers into poverty (Chandra etal. 2017). In
rural areas where microfinance loans have become core to
farming households’ economy, cases of debt-driven land dis-
possession are also becoming increasingly prevalent (Green
2022b; Green and Bylander 2021). Land loss from climate
change does not necessarily occur as a discrete event, but
could also come about through a culmination of diverse
forms of dispossession and loss of access and productivity.
Climate change can thus intensify struggles and griev-
ances around loss of access to land, cultural practices, and
ways of life, and lead to abrupt and highly differentiated out-
comes that can deepen feelings of injustice (Shattuck etal.
2023; Sultana 2021; Taşdemir Yaşın, 2022). Consequently,
for some scholars “agrarian justice and climate justice have
become dialectically linked” (Borras and Franco 2018,
p. 1320) and there is a need for research that foregrounds
“intersecting uncertainties and diverse local understand-
ings of climate change in particular settings” (Borras etal.
2022, p. 6). Recent contributions emphasise the centrality of
land in developing situated understandings of how climate
change reconfigures relations of production and politics in
the rural-agrarian world (Borras etal. 2020; Scoones etal.
2023; Sekine 2021). They also highlight its usefulness as an
analytical lens to grasp intangible forms of loss related to
climate change impacts on health and well-being in places
where land is deeply embedded in the social and cultural
fabric of communities (Galway etal. 2022; Johnson etal.
2021; Sawatzky etal. 2020). This illustrates the importance
of approaches that can both account for the complex inter-
play of political-economic structural drivers of vulnerability
and gradual climatic changes in agrarian settings, in addition
to capturing the more experiential and subjective dimensions
of climate change and loss associated with land.
In this paper, our aim is to better understand the relation-
ship between agrarian change and experiences of climate-
related loss, with a focus on Indigenous and ethnic minority
smallholder farmer communities in Ratanakiri province,
Cambodia. We depart from the following hypotheses:
i) Processes of agrarian change exacerbate the vulner-
ability of smallholder farmers to impacts from extreme
weather events by reconfiguring conditions of access to
resources (especially productive agricultural land and
credit);
ii) Experiences of climate-related loss are mediated by his-
tories of land struggles and values attached to land.
We make an analytical distinction between loss as a mate-
rial outcome and its experiential dimension by focusing on
people’s sense of loss in order to foreground intangible
dimensions of climate-related loss. We empirically inves-
tigate the factors influencing people’s sense of loss from
extreme weather events, employing an analytical frame-
work derived from political economy of vulnerability and
sociology of loss. We use a mixed-method approach for
data collection and analysis using hierarchical multivariate
regression analysis that progressively integrates factors of
vulnerability and relational and experiential dimensions to
explain our dependent variable “sense of loss”, which is an
index constructed from survey data. We combine this with a
narrative analysis based on qualitative data to nuance expe-
riences of climate-related loss. We first examine the inter-
connections between people’s sense of loss and household
livelihood activities, assets, and access to land and other
resources. We then integrate the role of values related to
land and perceptions and experiences of extreme weather
events in understanding experiences of climate-related loss.
The paper contributes ways to bridge global discussions on
Loss and Damage and lived experiences of climate-related
loss of rural-agrarian populations.
The relevance ofRatanakiri foragrarian
change andclimate‑related loss
Issues at the intersection of agrarian change and climate-
related loss are central to the experiences of populations in
rural parts of Cambodia (Eckstein etal. 2019; Fedele etal.
2021; National Institute of Statistics (NIS) 2019; Oudry
etal. 2016). Rapid economic growth since the 2000s has
led to extensive land-use change, forestland conversion, and
infrastructure development, which alongside impacts from
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Regional Environmental Change (2024) 24:161161 Page 4 of 18
climate change, challenge land-based livelihoods in unprec-
edented ways (Chann 2020; Hughes and Un 2011; Milne and
Mahanty 2015; Natarajan etal. 2019).
Ratanakiri province has been the site of agrarian transfor-
mations in recent decades that have fundamentally reshaped
the material basis for living. It is located in the north-eastern
mountainous plateau region of Cambodia and is home to the
largest share of Cambodia’s ethnic minorities and indigenous
people groups. Traditional livelihood practices, cosmologi-
cal beliefs, and social worlds are deeply intertwined with
the extensively forested environment (Ironside 2015). Live-
lihoods have historically centred on swidden agriculture,
collecting Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs), hunting,
and fishing (Park 2019). The allocation of Economic Land
Concessions (ELCs) up until its ban in 2012 mirrored expe-
riences across Cambodia and culminated in abrupt loss of
access to land for smallholder farmers and indigenous and
ethnic minority communities (Chanrith etal. 2016), as vast
tracts of forestland were converted mainly for agro-industrial
purposes (Hor etal. 2014). This resulted in diverse expres-
sions of resistance, with consequent negotiations marked
by severe power imbalances and to the detriment of local
communities (Bourdier 2019; Thuon 2018). Combined
with a sporadically implemented systematic land titling
programme, the emergence of an informal land market, and
in-migration,2 the consequent privatisation and disposses-
sion of land led to major constriction of swidden agriculture
and forest access (Baaz etal. 2017; Diepart and Middleton
2022; Dwyer 2015; Fox etal. 2008, 2009; Oldenburg and
Neef 2014). Civil society organisations have mobilised in
support of community rights, including through the imple-
mentation of communal land titling to formalise customary
access to land (Rabe 2013; Vize and Hornung 2013), but
land competition and bureaucratic constraints have limited
the potential of these mechanisms.
While communities have long been exposed to climatic
variability and other environmental hazards, climate change
and its effects on the incidence of extreme weather events,
the frequency and unpredictability of floods, droughts, and
insect infestations are becoming increasingly pertinent fac-
tors in people’s lives (Sok 2015; Sumaylo 2009). Regionally,
there is evidence indicating that climate change is impacting
monsoonal surface temperatures and precipitation patterns
in Southeast Asia (Sentian etal. 2022). In Cambodia, tem-
peratures have risen by 0.18 °C per decade since the 1960s,
particularly during the dry season (with increases of 0.20 to
0.23 °C), and over the last century, the number of additional
“hot days” has increased by up to 46 days (USAID 2019).
The country already has some of the highest temperatures
globally, with an average of 64 days annually where maxi-
mum temperatures exceed 35 °C, and it is facing “a transi-
tion to a state of permanent heat stress due to temperatures
that regularly exceed levels safe for humans and biodiver-
sity” (The World Bank Group and Asian Development Bank
2021, p. 13).
According to the Ministry of Environment, all districts
of Ratanakiri were classified as highly vulnerable to climate
hazards (storms, floods, and droughts) in the 2014–2019
period (NCSD-MoE 2020). More frequent and intense
extreme weather events compound the impacts of agrar-
ian change and consequent dilemmas as smallholder farm-
ers increasingly rely on market access for their livelihoods.
Today, approximately 83% of households in Ratanakiri rely
on firewood and charcoal for fuel, with 81% of adults work-
ing in the agriculture sector that is highly dependent on rain-
fed farming (National Institute of Statistics (NIS) (2020a)).
Approximately 51% of households are considered landless,
many of whom are dependent on income from intermittent
and informal farm work, while 21% own less than one hec-
tare of land (National Institute of Statistics (NIS) (2020b)).
Smallholders have adopted cashew trees as the primary
income-generating crop, followed by soybean, and rubber.
Meanwhile, while food security remains a pertinent issue, the
viability of cash crops under climate change is increasingly
questioned and evidence of climate-related losses is growing
(Chhum and Phuong 2022; Grüter etal. 2022).
Methodology
Sites andsampling
We selected seven communes in four districts that repre-
sent the varied socio-economic and ecological conditions
that characterise Ratanakiri province (Fig.1). Eleven vil-
lages were then randomly selected across these communes
based on official district population lists. Since household
lists were not available for all the villages, the team of
enumerators approximated randomisation by selecting
households by spreading across the village in different
directions. Villages in Ratanakiri are often spatially con-
centrated, which reduces the risks of biased sampling
within villages. When respondents were not available,
appointments were made for the next day with the help of
village chiefs. Villages are anonymised and their charac-
teristics are presented in Appendix A (TableA.1); between
17 and 22% of households were surveyed in each village,
and across the eleven villages 63–100% of respondents
reported having experienced an extreme weather event in
the past 5 years.
2 Population growth has been high due to in-migration, growing by
45% since 2008 to reach 217,000 people in 2019 National Institute of
Statistics (NIS) (2020a)).
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Regional Environmental Change (2024) 24:161 Page 5 of 18 161
Data collection methods
Data collection took place during February and March
2022. We used a household survey (n = 295) with a struc-
tured questionnaire, 21 semi-structured individual interviews
with farmers, and 8 focus group discussions. The survey was
conducted by a team of researchers, extension staff from
Ratanakiri provincial administration, and staff from local
non-governmental organisations with extensive knowledge
of the context and who received training on the survey. All
qualitative data were transcribed and translated into English
and then analysed and coded in NVivo software (release
1.5.1) according to the themes and sub-themes of the ana-
lytical framework presented in the “Methodology” section.
We used household surveys to quantify the effect of
indicators of climatevulnerability and social differentia-
tion, impacts of extreme weather events, and perceptions
of changes in the climate and weather events, on people’s
sense of loss. The questionnaire was designed iteratively,
through discussions within the research team, and during
training and piloting with enumerators in Ratanakiri. We
used a visual exercise to understand households’ livelihood
composition and how it changed over time, focusing on land-
based and environmental activities. Respondents were asked
to place a total of forty stones on a board containing images
representing various activities according to their relative
importance for their household’s livelihood (Appendix A,
Fig.A.1). Surveys were conducted using electronic tablets,
in Khmer, and when necessary, translated orally into local
languages (Brao, Kachok, Kavet, Krueng, Lao, Tampuen)
with the help of assistants from the village. The average
survey duration was 45 min.
To understand the effects of climate change on people’s
livelihoods and experiences, we centred on occurrences of
extreme weather events. In line with our aim of exploring the
more insidious and cumulative effects of climate change in
contexts of rapid agrarian change, we did not focus on one
single event. Instead, the survey instrument was designed to
ask participants about the five most important extreme weather
events in the past 5 years. Hence, we did not identify events a
priori but instead qualified events as extreme from the point of
view of the participant, recognising that the notion of extreme
is context-specific and acknowledging the need to better inte-
grate local people’s climate knowledge and experience of
Fig. 1 Map of study sites in Cambodia showing Ratanakiri province and the communes included in the study
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Regional Environmental Change (2024) 24:161161 Page 6 of 18
climatic events (IPCC 2022a; Reyes-García etal. 2024). We
used the term [Preutekar Ah-
Kastheat Th’ngun Th’ngor] in Khmer, which translates to
“extreme weather/climate extreme events” in English. We also
provided examples of types of events (e.g. heavy/early/delayed
rainfall, dry weather, storm, drought, floods, high heat, (unsea-
sonal) low temperatures) to enhance consistency. This section
of the survey questionnaire preceded the sections on climate-
related loss, thus helping to prime participants’ memories and
generalise the analysis across different experiences of different
types of events.
Semi-structured interviews were conducted to gener-
ate qualitative insights into the dimensions measured in
the survey. These focused on notions of climate-related
loss, changing land relations, and values attached to land.
Specifically, we discussed general farming challenges such
as crop failures, extreme weather events, land tenure, and
debt, to understand how people experience the socioen-
vironmental changes associated with processes of agrar-
ian change. Interviews were conducted with individuals
who did not participate in the household survey and lasted
approximately 1 h. We treated loss as primarily embed-
ded in experience and discussed it through the lens of
emotions and feelings asking, for instance, “How did you
feel (when this happened)?” instead of “What loss did
you suffer?”.
Focus group discussions aimed to establish perceptions of
causal relationships underlying changes in extreme weather
events, land conditions, and livelihoods, as well as to capture
differentiation and collective dimensions of experiences of
climate-related loss. Eight groups were formed according to
gender and generation (two only female, two only male, one
elder, one youth, and two mixed gender and age) across four
villages, to compare sets of perspectives between groups
expected to have different experiences.
Data analysis
The theoretical basis of this work is threefold. First, it
departs from theory addressing climate change impacts
causing differentiated and potentially disproportionate
losses for certain groups in agrarian contexts, specifically
for smallholder farmers, Indigenous groups, and ethnic
minorities (IPCC 2022b). Second, it draws from scholar-
ship on climate-related loss by integrating relational and
experiential dimensions of loss through values and per-
ceptions (Barnett etal. 2016). Third, it builds upon recent
work articulating climate change and agrarian struggles
as linked, by centring on and using land as an analytical
lens to understand how people experience the effects of
climate change in contexts of agrarian change (Borras etal.
2022; Borras and Franco 2018; Franco and Borras 2021;
Newell 2022). Our analytical approach therefore centres
on experiences of loss as mediated by dimensions of social
differentiation and climatevulnerability, experiences of
agrarian change, and climate change using land as an ana-
lytical entry point, whereby loss is treated as distinct from
impact through the notion of value. We combine regression
analysis with a narrative analysis of transcripts of inter-
views and focus group discussions which we coded using
Nvvo 12, following an analytical framework derived from
literature on political economy of climate vulnerability,
social differentiation, and sociology of loss, as presented
below and in Fig.2.
We outline four components to our analytical framework:
i) “Sense of loss” (our dependent variable) is an index
compounded from five Likert Scale questions capturing
perceptions of negative impacts, including on aspects
of value in relation to land (see Appendix B, Sect.3.1),
feelings of grief or hopelessness, and helplessness or
lack of control in the face of extreme weather events
(Clissold etal. 2022; Elliott 2018; Marshall etal. 2019;
Preston 2017; Tschakert etal. 2017, 2019);
ii) “Climate vulnerability and social differentiation”
focuses on characteristics of vulnerability and social dif-
ferentiation in rural-agricultural contexts, such as livelihood
activities, assets, and access to resources, including debt and
ability to repay (Adger 1999; Dagdeviren etal. 2021; Green
2022a; Ribot 2014; Taylor 2014; Thomas etal. 2019);
iii) “Land-climate relations”, which centres on the rela-
tional dimensions of land and climate interactions,
through values related to land and impacts of extreme
weather events in relation to livelihood and well-being
(Arias-Arévalo etal. 2017; Borras and Franco 2018;
Galway etal. 2022; Johnson etal. 2021; Park 2019;
Pearson etal. 2021; Sawatzky etal. 2020); and
iv) “Experience and perception of climate change”,
which captures the experiential aspects of climate
change and extreme weather events, perceptions, and
information (Bayrak etal. 2020; Beauchamp and Mil-
ner-Gulland 2019; Boissière etal. 2013; Matthan 2022;
Mehta etal. 2019; Rühlemann and Jordan 2021).
These four components are designed to unpack the rela-
tionship between sense of loss and the values, perceptions,
and experiences of individuals in the context of climatic and
agrarian changes, in addition to typically studied indicators
of climate vulnerability and social differentiation. A detailed
description of the analytical process and treatment of each
of the variables and indicators outlined in this framework is
presented in Appendix B.
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Regional Environmental Change (2024) 24:161 Page 7 of 18 161
Statistical analysis
We operationalise our analytical framework using a set of
indicators for each dimension (Table1), which we then
tested for correlation with the dependent variable (sense of
loss) through bivariate Pearson’s correlation analyses (for
ordinal- and ratio-scaled variables) and one-way analyses
of variance (for nominal variables). Results of bivariate cor-
relation analyses and ANOVAs are presented in Appendix C
(TableC.1for nominal variables and TableC.2for ordinal
and ratio variables). Those variables showing a significant
relationship with sense of loss based on the bivariate analy-
ses were included in the subsequent linear regression mod-
els. We also include the village as a random factor in the
Table 1 Overview of variables used to operationalise the analytical framework. Composite indices are indicated by *
Variable/indicator Variable type Description
Index of sense of loss* (dependent) Ratio Composite index score comprised of Likert scale questions
relating to sense of loss from extreme weather events
Village Nominal Village in which the household is located
Indicators of climate vulnerability and social differentiation
Livelihood activities
Number of livelihood activities Ordinal Three categories based on a list of eight: one activity, 2–4 activi-
ties, 5–8 activities. Five of the activities are agricultural, two
are environmental, and only one is based on non-farm activi-
ties (Appendix B)
Importance of rice farming Ordinal Whether rice farming constitutes a portion lower or greater than
29% (mean value) in the overall household livelihood
Assets
Asset score – wealth level* Ratio Household assets/wealth level calculated as a score out of 100
through PCA based on three categories of assets: (i) household
assets, (ii) productive assets, and (iii) livestock
Landholdings Ratio Total landholdings of household in hectares
Loan holding and ability to repay Ordinal Whether the respondent has a loan and how easy or difficult it is
to pay it back
Access to resources
Age Ratio Age of the respondent (centred)
Gender Nominal Gender of the respondent
Education level Ordinal Education level of the respondents in number of years binned
into three categories
Income level Ordinal Annual income for the respondent in Khmer Riels (KHR)
binned into two categories
 Land tenure Nominal Some form of formal land title by the respondent
Indicators of land-climate relations
Values related to land* Ratio Composite index score comprised of Likert scale questions
relating to varied values associated with land
Impact in relation to livelihoods and well-being
Lost/damaged agricultural produce
during an extreme weather event Ratio Proportion of lost agricultural produce during extreme weather
events in relation to importance in livelihood calculated as a
score
Breadth of types of impacts experienced
during an extreme weather event Nominal Type of negative impacts on well-being experienced grouped
as: no impact, only material/economic, both material and
immaterial
Indicators of experience and perception of climate change
Perception of change in climate and
extreme weather events* Ratio Degree of experienced changes in climate and extreme weather
calculated as a composite index score based on Likert scale
questions
Experienced extreme weather events Nominal Respondent has experienced one or more extreme weather
events during the last 5 years
Access to information about extreme
weather events Nominal Respondent has access to information about extreme weather
events
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Regional Environmental Change (2024) 24:161161 Page 8 of 18
analysis, which may play a meaningful role but will not be
evaluated in this paper; there was no indication of clustering
in the data.
We constructed three models using a hierarchical linear
regression method and progressively integrated variables
related to (i) climate vulnerability and social differentia-
tion, (ii) land-climate relations, and (iii) experience and
perception of climate change. We conducted a Breusch-
Pagan test to test heteroskedasticity in the model, which
indicated no heteroscedasticity in residuals; and collin-
earity diagnostics, which indicated no sign of multicol-
linearilty (all values were below the cut-off of 5–10).
Additionally, we tested another four alternative models
(without hierarchical entry) using increasingly conserva-
tive covariate inclusion criteria to ensure the final selec-
tion of covariates did not lead to over-fitting (Appendix
D). First, we included all covariates in the model (without
hierarchical entry); second, we included only those sig-
nificant covariates from the first model (p < 0.05, wit hout
hierarchical entry); third, we included only those covari-
ates with significant bivariate correlation or one-way
ANOVA effects on sense of loss; and fourth, we included
only those significant covariates from the third model
(without hierarchical entry) (TableD.6).
Results
Presentation ofthemodels
Through the hierarchical regression analysis, we obtained
three models (Tables2 and 3). Model 3 is the final best-
performing one (Table2) selected for analysis, for which
59% of the variance in sense of loss is explained. Spe-
cific parameters and significance levels are presented in
Table2. Model 3 performed better in terms of adjusted R2
and Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) than all the (non-
hierarchical) increasingly conservative models we tested
(AppendixD, TableD.5).
Fig. 2 Analytical framework and steps of the hierarchical regression analysis. Details of variables and indices are given in Table1
Table 2 Overview of comparison between three hierarchically nested
linear regression models. “Best” performance was based on lowest
AIC value and highest adjusted R2
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Significance < 0.001*** < 0.001*** < 0.001***
Adjusted R square 0.21 0.42 0.59
Akaike Information
Criterion
1474.00 1397.53 1308.33
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Regional Environmental Change (2024) 24:161 Page 9 of 18 161
Table 3 Overview of coefficient estimates, and their significance and standard error, for each model in the hierarchical linear regression
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
b SE b SE b SE
Village
Village 1 6.6524 5.021 4.967 4.329 7.526** 3.693
Village 2 12.910** 5.259 10.137** 4.494 11.265** 3.830
Village 3 7.279* 3.984 8.619** 3.568 7.341** 3.057
Village 4 4.989 4.542 3.543 3.977 3.363 3.444
Village 5 9.782* 5.097 6.772 4.403 8.850** 3.735
Village 6 10.804** 4.450 10.772** 4.008 10.721** 3.422
Village 7 − 0.030 5.178 − 2.538 4.517 1.929 3.943
Village 8 7.856 4.966 3.401 4.293 2.210 3.777
Village 9 13.749** 5.649 6.898 4.962 5.999 4.309
Village 10 10.857** 5.259 7.735* 4.551 9.454** 3.847
Village 11 REF REF REF
Number of livelihood activities
1 activity 9.543 9.537 2.782 8.273 6.475 6.989
2–4 activities REF REF REF
5 or more activities 10.493*** 2.151 7.101 *** 1.882 3.983** 1.619
Above average importance of rice in
overall livelihood 0.904 2.187 − 0.804 1.946 0.438 1.639
Asset score – wealth level 0.570 0.714 0.141 0.620 0.433 0.530
Landholdings − 0.038 0.433 0.181 0.375 0.338 0.319
Loan holding and ability to repay
No loan 1.949 2.815 1.924 2.417 0.408 2.042
Somewhat difficult or extremely dif-
ficult to pay back REF REF REF
Neither easy nor difficult to pay back 5.661 3.824 8.336** 3.310 4.823* 2.824
Somewhat easy or extremely easy to
pay back − 7.219* 4.157 − 7.154** 3.580 − 8.376** 3.010
Land tenure − 9.183*** 2.309 − 4.930** 2.051 − 3.956** 1.782
Age (centred) 0.068 0.090 0.040 0.080 0.021 0.067
Gender (male) − 1.177 2.232 − 0.665 1.923 0.790 1.633
Education level
No education (0years) REF REF REF
Little education (1–4years) 2.500 2.399 − 0.695 2.108 − 1.450 1.771
More advanced education (5 +)7.620** 3.185 3.795 2.780 1.202 2.363
Income level
Above 5,000,000 KHR − 4.554* 2.461 − 5.079** 2.126 − 2.014 1.826
Values related to land 0.635*** 0.095 0.341*** 0.085
Lost/damaged agricultural produce − 0.026 0.057 − 0.071 0.052
Types of impacts
No impact REF REF REF
Only material impacts 19.790*** 3.466 12.357*** 3.692
Both material and immaterial impacts 23.552*** 3.480 14.062*** 3.827
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Regional Environmental Change (2024) 24:161161 Page 10 of 18
Climate vulnerability andsocial differentiation
We find a significant effect of number of livelihood activi-
ties, presence of some form of land tenure, and the ability
to repay loans, on sense of loss. Households with five or
more livelihood activities had a higher sense of loss—their
score increased by 3.98 on average—compared to house-
holds with 2–4 activities. Processes of agrarian change in
Ratanakiri, such as economic land concessions and conserva-
tion measures, combined with demographic pressures from
in-migration, have significantly reduced access to land and
other natural resources over the last 20 years. This suggests
that perceptions and experiences of climate-related loss are
mediated by the activities households engage in, since it indi-
cates a reliance on a greater number of agroecological activi-
ties that are (a) more prone to climatic stress and therefore
potential loss, and (b) access to environmental resources is
diminishing because of political-economic drivers. Through
interviews and group discussions, it became clear that, for
many participants, reduced access to forests due to enforce-
ment of protected areas and forestland conversion limits abili-
ties to secure a livelihood from land-based and environmental
activities. In turn, this increases reliance on cash crops and
seasonal work as labourers, which is problematic for those
that still need to engagein other activities. This contrasts
with other studies that show diversified livelihoods reduce
vulnerability to climate variability and change (Kelly and
Adger 2000). Only six households reported having one liveli-
hood activity, so although their sense of loss scores were all
high (ranging from 55 to 95), the small group size may have
contributed to the non-significant statistical result (Table3).
Although rice farming was identified as both the most
important livelihood activity and the most problematic
when affected by extreme weather events in the qualitative
data, its relative importance in a household’s livelihood is
not correlated with sense of loss in our models. This can
be partially explained by the relationship between rice and
other activities in the overall households’ livelihoods. For
instance, cash crops mainly provide income for purchasing
rice in times when own production is damaged or destroyed
by extreme weather: “[…] rice is our food. When we get
money, we still buy rice. We get profit from potatoes’ yields
to buy rice. This means that rice is easily damaged, and it is
important for our lives.” (Female FGD participant, March
16, 2022). Farmland dedicated to rice cultivation has report-
edly decreased by about 70% in the province over the last
two decades, partly due to the rapid expansion of cash crop
cultivation (Interviewee, March 21, 2022).
With regard to assets, neither level of wealth according to
our measure nor size of landholdings had a statistical effect
on sense of loss. This suggests that other, less material, con-
ditions and experiences are important for understanding per-
ceptions of climate-related loss. The ability to repay loans
(specifically, ease of repayment) significantly reduced sense
of loss. A household that finds it extremely easy to repay their
loan is likely to have a sense of loss score 8.38 lower on aver-
age than one having difficulty repaying or without a loan.
Access to loans and other financial products, especially micro-
finance loans for agricultural production, is a relatively recent
but rapidly rising phenomenon in Ratanakiri specifically, and
Cambodia more generally. About half of survey respondents
had loans and amongst this group, 50.3% had difficulty repay-
ing their loans. Access to loans is differentiated, with those
living in poverty often not gaining access. Ratanakiri’s history
of land struggles and experiences of loss of access to land for
some villages remain vivid in people's memories and shape
perceptions of debt. Across the study sites, we found that peo-
ple were increasingly aware of and concerned about cases in
other villages where people had lost their land due to over-
indebtedness. Interviewees explained that many of the villag-
ers, especially the older ones and those living in poverty, “do
not dare” to take loans even if they could due to fears of debt
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
b SE b SE b SE
Perception of change in climate and
extreme weather events 0.443*** 0.046
Experienced extreme weather events 1.553 3.242
Access to information about extreme
weather events 3.206 2.717
Level of significance * p ≤ 0.1; ** p ≤ 0.05; *** p ≤ 0.001; b, unstandardized coefficient; SE, standard error; REF, reference category. Reference
categories were selected based on the following rationales: Village 11 – to compare villages with less favourable livelihood conditions to a village
with more favourable conditions; 2–4 livelihood activities – to compare the effects of lack of diversity (1 activity) and high diversity (5 + activities)
to moderate diversification; Somewhat difficult or extremely difficult to pay back (loans) – to compare those with difficulty repaying loans to those
with no loans or no difficulty repaying them; No education (0years) – to compare no education to little and advanced education; No impact – to
compare those experiencing some impacts to those experiencing none.
Table 3 (Continued)
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Regional Environmental Change (2024) 24:161 Page 11 of 18 161
failures potentially resulting in them losing access to their
land. Financialisation of livelihoods through indebtedness is
thus not necessarilys linked to wealth or landholdings, but can
cause significant psychological distress for many farmers as it
can pre-empt loss of access to land when deteriorating returns
make it difficult to service loans.
In terms of access to resources, only land tenure had a
significant effect on sense of loss. Having some form of land
title reduces the overall sense of loss by 3.96, on average.
About 63% of households surveyed reported some form of
formal land tenure. Beyond the sense of security that they
provide, land titles were viewed as useful to obtain loans by
using land as collateral, mainly for farming investments and
to cope with the impacts of extreme weather and unexpected
household expenditures (such as emergency healthcare). Our
qualitative data also shows that the high level of awareness
and concern about risks of losing access to land, especially
in the face of increasing extreme weather, seem to incen-
tivise engagement with and support for savings groups and
collective land titling, the latter prohibiting the sale of land
to people external to the village.
Gender, age, and education level, which are usually
prominent factors influencing vulnerability to climate
impacts, did not appear in the model to significantly affect
sense of loss as measured by our index. While our qualita-
tive analysis indicates gendered differences in participants’
experiences, both female and male farmers expressed
feelings of worry associated with the impacts of extreme
weather and climate change. Female interviewees referred
more frequently to working as farm labourers for others
as the main coping strategy to recover from the effects of
extreme weather impacts, a practice that was reported by
49.7% of households in the survey. For female farmers
especially, our data also points to increased worry related
to childcare responsibilities and work away from home:
“When we go to work [in the fields], we are worried about
our children at home while it is storming because no one
is looking after them” (Female FGD participant, March
16, 2022). For male interviewees, gendered expectations
as the head of the family and associated responsibility to
provide for its members appear to play a significant role
in their sense of loss: “Even if the crop is damaged, I will
keep going, do other work because I am head of the family.
I still have hope that everything will be all right” (Inter-
viewee, February 25, 2022). These gendered experiences
of climate-related loss do not come through in the statis-
tical analysis but constitute crucial social dimensions of
how such (potential) losses are perceived and experienced.
Our quantitative and qualitative analyses suggest a com-
plex relationship between income and sense of loss. One-
way ANOVA of sense of loss by income group showed
respondents with an income of more than five million KHR
(approx. 1215 USD) per year had a significantly lower sense
of loss score than those under five million KHR (Table C.1),
and this relationship held in the first two models of the hier-
archical regression but not the third (Table3). This suggests
that income plays a decreasingly important role in differenti-
ated sense of loss as one additionally considers land-climate
relations and experiences with and perception of climate
change. These findings may be partially explained by the
relationship between income, loan holding, and land tenure,
as described earlier. Most respondents described the need to
work as labourers to gain income and purchase rice when
crops are damaged by extreme weather or fail, and some-
times work being remunerated in rice. Stable income was
described as a pre-condition to “daring” to take a loan and
as influencing the choice of crops for cultivation. Those with
lower incomes increasingly turn to cashew and cassava while
those with higher incomes choose capital-intensive crops
such as pepper, rubber, and other fruit trees (Interviewee,
March 21, 2022). Both income earning and labouring for
others for cash are manifestations of the expansion of the
market economy in the province, which has occurred over
the last two decades.
Land‑climate relations, andexperience
andperception ofclimate change
Integrating variables related to land and climate relations,
and experience and perception of climate change, increases
the percentage of variance explained for sense of loss from
21 to 59% (Table2). A higher score on values related to
land significantly increases sense of loss (Table3). People’s
land-related values are wide-ranging, which makes (poten-
tial) impacts of extreme weather events in interaction with
debt a significant threat. The qualitative data highlighted that
access to and ownership of land, and the ability to make a
living from one’s land, is core to a sense of autonomy and
control over the family’s livelihood and future. Contrarily,
working as a farm labourer for others is broadly perceived to
undermine that sense of autonomy and control.
The more land we own, the more hope we have. We
cannot solely depend on working as labour workers
because it is not a stable job. They only need you once
in a while, and you obviously cannot be better off
working as a labour worker. (Male FGD participant,
March 14, 2022)
The degree of damaged or lost agricultural produce in
relation to livelihoods did not significantly affect sense of
loss from extreme weather events in the regression analysis,
a finding which our qualitative data helps to nuance. The
lack of significance in the models can partially be explained
by the degree of damage not only manifesting through
reduced quantities, as measured in the survey, but also
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Regional Environmental Change (2024) 24:161161 Page 12 of 18
through changes in quality and price, which interviewees
reported as decreasing, for instance, when erratic rainfall
patterns occur. Several interviewees described excessive rain
as causing rice seeds to become lighter and less full, while
untimely rain would cause a drop in prices for soybeans and
cashews that had not had time to dry.
We find a significant effect of the breadth of impact types
experienced during past extreme weather events and sense
of loss. About 72% of respondents reported loss of agricul-
tural produce, 57% loss of income, 18% increased worry,
and only 8% of respondents reported not having experienced
any impacts (see Appendix B, Sect.3.2). Material impacts
contribute the greatest amount to an increased sense of loss
statistically, and people who experienced both material and
non-material forms of harm have the highest sense of loss,
with scores 14 points higher on average than those report-
ing no impacts. Material and non-material forms of harm
are interrelated, and their interactions were often expressed
through feelings of uneasiness and worry, which were often
difficult to express.
It [impacts of extreme weather] made us concernedand
easily agitated. Furthermore, it left us unsatisfied with
what had occurred. […] [to which another participant
added] it left us with this unsatisfying thing, it feels
complicated what happens to us. This feeling also
applies to my family. (FGD participant, March 17,
2022)
While people’s perception of changes in intensity and fre-
quency of climate and weather events had a significant effect
on sense of loss, having experienced an extreme weather event
did not, possibly because most respondents reported having
experienced at least one extreme weather event. Moreover,
access to information regarding extreme weather events is
not statistically related to sense of loss. Perceptions and expe-
riences of extreme weather events cannot be understood in
isolation from climate variability, farming practices, land-
use change patterns, and belief systems. Across the variety
of land-use practices and ecological contexts of our study,
interviewees perceived significant changes in climate and
weather alongside and through drastic changes in land use
related to agricultural intensification and ecological degrada-
tion. Participants described how reduced access to land has
contributed to an inability for households to practice shift-
ing cultivation and how cultivation on the same plot of land
for several years combined with significant deforestation and
erratic weather has led to significant reductions in soil fertil-
ity and yields. They often spoke of a significant increase in
the use of agricultural inputs (pesticides and fertilisers), and
pest outbreaks, which are manifestations of wider processes
of agrarian change.
Beyond its productive role, land and the natural environ-
ment more broadly are embedded in community members’
knowledge and belief systems. In some communities, prayers
and offerings to spirits are common practices as part of pre-
paring the farmland and dealing with the negative impacts
of extreme weather events. Our qualitative data indicates that
increasingly erratic weather is contributing, alongside other
processes of social and environmental change (for example,
generational shift, decreasing forest access), to erode some of
these practices and knowledge. Taken together, experiences
of climate and land-use change in the form of ecological deg-
radation and less predictable weather patterns, are gradually
narrowing the space for tenable livelihood options, affecting
people’s feelings of control and knowledge, and more broadly
fostering a sense of helplessness and hopelessness, for them-
selves and their communities.
It is basically the same for all of us. Now that climate
change is happening, we can imagine that it will only get
worse in the future, especially for our cultivation prac-
tices. Once the soil fertility is decreased so is our hope
for the future. […] [In response to the previous state-
ment, another adds] To me, I would only have hope for
the future if the climate remains unchanged. If it keeps
changing at this pace, I do not have much hope for what
the future may hold. (Male FGD participants, March 14,
2022)
Nonetheless, such feelings were also often accompanied
by expressions of persistence and resistance as participants
described that despite a lack of hope to face or change circum-
stances underlying climate-related loss, they would not “give
up”. When asked what it would mean to live in a future where
weather events became more intense and frequent, participants
most often described the necessity to persist for their children’s
future and education: “The only thing we can do is try to earn
more to get money for our children to go to school to get an
education. Although it is not for us, it is going to be for their
future. [to which another participant responded] I think it is
the only property that cannot be stolen.” (Female FGD partici-
pants, March 14, 2022).
Discussion
Our analysis illustrates some of the ways in which cli-
mate-related loss manifests amongst indigenous and eth-
nic minority smallholder farmers in Ratanakiri, not as an
outcome of pre-determined criteria of vulnerability but as
experiential, relational, and historically situated. The find-
ings indicate that beyond characteristics such as age, gen-
der, education, wealth, or landholdings, it is also important
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Regional Environmental Change (2024) 24:161 Page 13 of 18 161
to consider the influence of financialization (indebtedness,
land tenure, and different kinds of land-based and environ-
mental livelihood activities), the diverse values associated
with land, the impacts of climatic events on well-being,
and perceptions of changes in climate, to understand sense
of loss from extreme weather events. Less predictable and
more frequent and intense weather events contribute to
sense of loss by exacerbating risks of debt failure and loss
of access to land.
The co‑production ofloss throughagrarian
andclimatic change
Expressions of loss as the absence of hope appeared as
linked to the intertwined processes of climate change and
expansion of capitalist modes of production that reshape
relations of production, the environment, the land, and
people’s social worlds. Pressures on land and land-based
resources are the outcomes of a long history of social and
environmental change in Ratanakiri. In interaction with
the impacts of extreme weather events, such pressures are
restricting livelihood options for many while reshaping
labour practices and notions of autonomy. More erratic
and extreme weather contribute to gradually increasing
the dependence of smallholders on cash crops, off-farm
work, and bank loans to improve their livelihood and
food security as rice crops increasingly fail. Participants
across the various ecological contexts of our study per-
ceived changes in climate and weather alongside changes
in land use, such as the negative effects of deforestation
and erratic weather on soil fertility and yields. In a context
of expanding access to credit and insecure land tenure,
these processes add to growing concerns about the rising
influence of financial institutions and instruments in the
rural economy and the risk of land sales due to debt failure
within and beyond Cambodia (Green 2019, 2022b; Green
and Bylander 2021).
Previous research in Ratanakiri has shown that the sale
of land as a last resort to address over-indebtedness is
often accompanied by a sense of shame, partly because
land sales have deep social implications for the communi-
ties and can threaten a sense of collective identity (Fox
etal. 2008). While the villages’ particular histories could
not be expanded upon in this paper, we stress that expe-
riences of climate-related loss amongst Indigenous and
ethnic minority groups should be understood as differenti-
ated and historically situated (Frewer 2017; Joshi 2022).
Land politics and allocation processes in Cambodia are
marked by socio-political legacies from colonialism and
conflict that are critical for understanding the outcomes
of climate change (Chann 2020). While our results have
relevance for these dynamics, we do not claim an inherent
link between indigeneity, identity, and particular values
associated with land; experiences of land conflicts and loss
are not confined to the highlands in Cambodia, these have
occurred throughout the country (Ngin and Neef 2021;
Scheidel 2016).
On therole ofland struggles andvalues
Integrating the relational and experiential dimensions of
loss, alongside material dimensions, has theoretical and
methodological value for understanding the implications
of loss from climate change for rural politics and climate
justice. Sense of loss can still be experienced even in the
absence of material losses. Even if the loss of access to land
had not yet materialised, the fear, grief, and loss emanating
from this possibility appeared as very tangible in our results
but only emerged through an iterative analysis between the
quantitative and qualitative data. In our analysis, the analyti-
cal distinction between loss and sense of loss from climate
change as mediated through values associated withland
and land-climate relations, and the use of a mixed-method
research design, provided a useful way to navigate the dis-
tinction between materiality and experience when interpret-
ing our data. While material losses can often be measured
as they occur, feelings occupy a longer time span and are
interconnected with past experiences of injustice and hopes
for the future. These interconnections illustrate the useful-
ness of developing relational and historical understandings
in “forging viable agrarian futures in the face of climate
change” (Matthan 2022, p. 19); and the need for more holis-
tic, value-based, and situated approaches to researching cli-
mate-related loss (van Schie etal. 2023).
Experiences of climate-related loss should not be equated
with a state of vulnerability, but instead need to be located
within a broader understanding of agency and resistance that
acknowledges the diversity of responses to loss of access to
land in agrarian settings. Sense of loss from climate change
appeared as intimately connected to land relations, specifi-
cally previous experiences of land dispossession and associ-
ated injustices, which are prevalent in the province. While
many expressed that they felt hopeless about a future with
climate change, giving up was not an option, reminding of
earlier research findings in relation to land conflicts and
resistance in Ratanakiri (Diepart etal. 2019; Park 2019).
These processes demonstrate the dynamic and relational
nature of climate-related loss as a process linked to uneven
development, rather than solely a result of intrinsic character-
istics of climate vulnerability or propensity to suffer greater
loss (Arora-Jonsson 2011; Cuomo 2011). These findings are
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Regional Environmental Change (2024) 24:161161 Page 14 of 18
relevant to questions of agrarian climate justice and rural
politics more broadly, for instance with regard to the pos-
sibility of alliances, to maintain and claim rights of access
to and control over land and other resources (Borras etal.
2022; Borras and Franco 2018), as well as possibilities of
imagining a future on and off the land in a changing climate.
Implications forpolicy andpractice
Questions of access, use, and value of land and natural
resources intersect with experiences and struggles around
agrarian change and climate change, with relevance for dis-
cussions on Loss and Damage and climate justice (Borras and
Franco 2012; Claeys and Delgado Pugley 2017; Naylor and
Ford 2023; Sekine 2021). Our results illustrate the difficulty
to clearly differentiate climatic drivers from other drivers
of socioenvironmental change, and thereby singling out the
role of climate change in processes of climate-related loss in
agrarian contexts. This echoes concerns raised in Loss and
Damage policy discussions on the use of attribution science
for identifying and compensating climate-related losses and
damages and the risk that it may obscure or render invisible
experiences in contexts where data availability is limited and
identifying changes in extreme weather events is challenging
(King etal. 2023; Otto etal. 2020). Similarly, our findings
indicate how tangible and intangible dimensions of climate-
related loss are deeply intertwined in the experiences of com-
munities suffering climate-related loss, and thereby reinforce
calls to move beyond dichotomies of economic and non-eco-
nomic forms of loss when engaging with lived experiences
of climate-related loss (van Schie etal. 2023). More flexible
and encompassing approaches are necessary to uncover and
account for climate-related losses that are more insidious and
cumulative and emerge through interaction with other driv-
ers, especially in contexts of agrarian change.
By focusing on both structural aspects of vulnerability
and relational and experiential dimensions of climate-
related loss, our methodology provides insights that can
inform and support the development of more comprehen-
sive approaches to understand and address various mecha-
nisms underlying climate-related loss, not only ex-post but
also ex-ante. In particular, our findings highlight the need
for policy and practice to engage with the role of financiali-
zation and microfinance debt on livelihoods and well-being,
and to broaden discussions on debt to the sub-national level
to understand how climate change can exacerbate differen-
tiation and risks of debt-driven land dispossession (Baird
2023; Isakson 2015; Kandikuppa and Gray 2022). In doing
so, the paper extends discussions on the linkages between
land and loss and damage, beyond slow-onset events and
land loss primarily as a physical phenomenon, such as
sea-level rise affecting small islands, towards greater con-
sideration for the risk of loss of access to land at the inter-
section of climatic and agrarian change.
Conclusion
As climate change accelerates, questions of justice for
climate-related loss and damage increasingly come to the
forefront. This empirical study illustrates the complexity
and relevance of climate-related loss in agrarian contexts
and contributes to the sparse body of literature on expe-
riences of loss amongst Indigenous and ethnic minority
groups in least-developed countries (Tschakert etal. 2019;
van der Geest and Warner 2020). Our results demonstrate
the importance of integrating experiential and relational
dimensions of land and climate interactions to understand
how processes of agrarian change such as financializa-
tion and histories of land struggles (especially, debt failure
and fear of loss of land) shape people’s experiences of
loss from climate change. Further grounded research on
climate-related loss in rural-agrarian contexts is needed
to understand its implications for rural politics. Locating
the diverse expressions of loss and hope in agrarian histo-
ries is necessary to move towards more just and desirable
agrarian futures in a changing climate.
Supplementary Information The online version contains supplemen-
tary material available at https:// doi. org/ 10. 1007/ s10113- 024- 02314-4.
Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank the villagers in
Ratanakiri who kindly provided their time and shared their experi-
ences to participate in the research. We also wish to thank staff mem-
bers of Ratanakiri Provincial Department of Agriculture, Forestry and
Fisheries (PDAFF), Indigenous Community Support Organisation
(ICSO), Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture
(CEDAC), and the Ratanakiri NGO Network (RNN), for their support
in carrying out the survey. Gratitude is also extended to Tum Nhim for
their support to the research, Sodavy Nhong for their assistance during
the transcription process, Nary Lay, and members of the DICE project.
This study was also made possible through the support of the Forsk-
raftstiftelsen Theodor Adelswärds minne foundation. Finally, we are
grateful to Chad Boda and Emily Boyd for providing useful comments
on this manuscript and to anonymous reviewers.
Funding Open access funding provided by Lund University. This work
was supported by the Swedish National Research Council (Formas)
[grant number FR-2018/0010] for the project “Recasting the dispro-
portionate impacts of climate change extremes (DICE)” and by the
Forskraftstiftelsen Theodor Adelswärds minne foundation. J. Persson’s
time on the paper was funded by Danmarks Frie Forskningsfond [grant
number 2029-00009B].
Declarations
Conflict of interest The authors declare that there are no conflicts of
interest regarding the research presented herein.
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Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attri-
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tion, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long
as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source,
provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes
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