Climate Shocks and Pastoralist Migration in South Sudan

Daniel Akech Thiong was born in southern Sudan (now South Sudan) and spent his early life in the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. He holds a PhD in mathematical analysis from Claremont Graduate University in California. He is a South Sudan Senior Analyst at the International Crisis Group. Thiong's writing has appeared in the Oxford Journal of African Affairs, openDemocracy, and African Arguments. Zed Books published his previous book, The Politics of Fear in South Sudan, in 2021.

• Introduction 1. Literature Review 2. Patterns of devastating floods 3. Patterns of severe droughts 5. The role of livestock disease outbreaks 6. Patterns of conflict during climate shocks 7. Patterns of cooperation during climate shocks 8. Conclusion Appendix A: List of people interviewedBibliographyIndex

Daniel Akech Thiong’s book offers an immersive and hugely valuable account of multilayered experiences of flooding, drought, disease, migration and conflict in South Sudan’s precarious Sudd landscape - an ecosystem on the global “frontline of climate change”. The book directs our attention away from the role of the country’s political and military elites in instigating conflict (who are the focus in the majority of contemporary analyses on South Sudan’s wars), towards the perspectives of the affected pastoralist communities themselves, offering new depth and dimensions to our understanding of why displacement and conflict have been so prevalent in this landscape.