AUTHOR=Murahashi Isao 
  
TITLE=Rainmaking and climate change: global discourse and local perspectives over regicide in South Sudan
  
JOURNAL=Pastoralism: Research, Policy and Practice
  
VOLUME=Volume 16 - 2026
  
YEAR=2026
  
URL=https://www.frontierspartnerships.org/journals/pastoralism-research-policy-and-practice/articles/10.3389/past.2026.15944
  
DOI=10.3389/past.2026.15944
  
ISSN=2041-7136
  
ABSTRACT=This article analyses how agro-pastoral communities perceive, adapt to, and address the effects of variable weather through a case study of regicides occurring during drought in South Sudan. Recently, South Sudan has been regarded as one of the African countries most severely affected by climate change. This global climate-change discourse has shaped narratives among policymakers and the media. Over the past decade, several communities in the ‘hills and mountains agro-ecological zones’ have experienced incidents in which villagers expelled or killed rain chiefs accused of deliberately stopping the rain. While the South Sudanese government and media attribute the droughts leading to these events to climate change, this view contrasts sharply with local perspectives. This article investigates two recent cases of rain chief killings among the Lopit, focusing on locally constructed beliefs about the relationship between nature and humans, as well as internal social conflicts. For the Lopit, rain is the central symbol connecting local religion and politics. Rain chiefs, believed to control weather within and during their reign, are responsible for ensuring rainfall according to their agricultural calendar, which is essential for community wellbeing and livestock health. They also serve as intermediaries between humans and the divine, helping people maintain and restore relationships with the divine. However, in this region of variable weather, rain represents both authority and risk. Drought not only causes conflict between communities and rain chiefs but also exposes underlying social tensions. This article contends that the straightforward link between drought and climate change requires reconsideration and highlights the importance of examining the morality of regicides.