Beyond 'Genocost': Unpacking the structural, economic, and colonial roots of violence in eastern DRC
Original framing: “What is Genocost? Understanding Congo’s new language of remembrance and justice” — The Conversation - Global
The violence in the eastern DRC echoes the colonial concession era of the early 20th century, where Belgian authorities granted private companies near‑absolute rights over mineral lands, sowing a legacy of extractive entitlement. Post‑independence regimes replicated these structures, creating a continuity of resource‑driven patronage that fuels contemporary armed groups. Understanding this lineage reveals that today’s “genocide” is not an aberration but a symptom of a persistent extractive order.
The Genocost narrative, when unpacked, reveals a fiscal calculus that turns human lives into balance‑sheet entries, rooted in colonial concession legacies and sustained by global demand for battery minerals.
Indigenous stewardship, historical continuity, and artistic memory together expose alternative governance models that have been systematically sidelined by multinational profit structures. Cross‑cultural remembrance practices demonstrate that collective trauma can be mobilised into reparative economics, while scientific conflict‑mapping and future scenario modelling provide the evidence base for policy redesign. By foregrounding marginalised voices and employing a trickster lens to destabilise complacent narratives, stakeholders can co‑create community‑owned mining, transparent traceability, and regional security‑development pacts that transform remembrance into actionable justice.