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Research paper
Patchwork States: The Localization of State Territoriality on the South Sudan–Uganda Border, 1914–2014
This paper takes a localized conflict over a non-demarcated stretch of the Uganda–South Sudan boundary in 2014 as a starting point for examining the history of territorial state formation on either side of this border since its colonial creation in…
Research paper
The humanitarian protectorate of South Sudan? Understanding insecurity for humanitarians in a political economy of aid
This paper contributes to debates about humanitarian governance and insecurity in post-conflict situations. Taking the case of South Sudan, it explores relations between humanitarian agencies, the international community, and local authorities, and how international and local forms of power become…
Research paper
The effects of conflict and displacement on violence against adolescent girls in South Sudan: the case of adolescent girls in the Protection of Civilian sites in Juba
There is a paucity of data on violence against women and girls (VAWG) during conflict in general and even less specifically on violence against adolescent girls. Based on secondary analysis of a larger study in South Sudan, this article highlights…
Research paper
The Asylum-Migration Nexus: Can Motivations Shape The Concept Of Coercion? The Sudanese Transit Case
This piece discusses forced migration from a multidisciplinary approach.
Research paper
Sensing Sleeping Sickness: Local Symptom-Making in South Sudan
Programs for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) such as sleeping sickness increasingly involve patients and community workers in syndromic case detection with little exploration of patient understandings of symptoms. Drawing on concepts from sensorial anthropology, I investigate peoples’ experiences of sleeping…
Research paper
Rethinking access to land and violence in post-war cities: reflections from Juba, Southern Sudan
It is often assumed that violence diminishes after civil war. In fact, urban areas can turn highly violent. The new forms of violence that can emerge are widespread but poorly understood and have been attributed to a range of factors…
Research paper
Protection and well-being of adolescent refugees in the context of a humanitarian crisis: Perceptions from South Sudanese refugees in Uganda
Improved understanding of refugees’ perceptions of provision of humanitarian support is important to improve design and delivery of humanitarian assistance. Refugee adolescents face a range of adversities, while the phase of displacement likely influences risk factors for adolescent refugees. However,…
Research paper
Engaging refugee women and girls as experts: co-creating evidence on sexual exploitation and abuse in humanitarian crises using creative, participatory methods
This paper explores how creative and participatory practices can address the barriers, such as illiteracy (including computer illiteracy) and lack of training, often cited as limiting researchers’ ability to share power with affected communities, and allow for greater co-production of…
Research paper
Sexual violence against men in conflict and post-conflict settings: A qualitative research methodology
This article describes the research design and the strategies employed in qualitative research with South Sudanese male refugee survivors of sexual violence who have resettled in two communities in Uganda since the onset of the 2013 South Sudan conflict.
Research paper
The Cultural Problematic in Narratives of Violence against Women and Girls in South Sudan
Our research points to the need for social and gender norm change approaches to be better contextualised within the political economy and through applying a nuanced critique of the role of culture in normalising many forms of VAWG. In addition,…
Research paper
Conflict, trade and the medium-term future of food security in Sudan
This article considers that the classic neoliberal prescription of peace, growth and foreign investment may deepen (and obscure) the needs and grievances of those historically left behind in a dysfunctional development process.
Research paper
A Disaster for Whom?: Local Interests and International Donors During Famine Among the Dinka of Sudan
The 1985–88 famine amongst the Dinka is described and shown to have been rooted in the long term exploitation of the south by northern Sudanese and international interests. This process of exploitation served, and continues to serve, important functions for…
Research paper
Dispersal, division and diversification: durable solutions and Sudanese refugees in Uganda
Questions over durable solutions in the social, political and security terrain of southern Sudan and northern Uganda invite recognition that simple delineations between “home” and “exile” are inadequate to understanding displacement and refugee status. Contrary to existing policies assuming an…
Briefing
One year after the coup: What next for Sudan’s Juba Peace Agreement?
This briefing considers the changing political situation in Sudan, exploring how the relationship between two key factions in the conflict has complicated discussions around the formation of a new political arrangement in Sudan.
Research paper
Sudan: International dimensions to the state and its crisis
This paper locates the internationalisation of Sudanese governance in a historical context.
Research paper
Sudan’s elusive democratisation: civic mobilisation, provincial rebellion and chameleon dictatorships
Sudan experienced two inspirational popular uprisings that brought down military dictatorships, but the ‘Arab Spring’ passed it by. This paper analyses social movements and armed resistance within the dualistic structure of Sudan’s centre and periphery. A pattern of alternating military…
Research paper
Introduction: Making Sense of South Sudan
This introductory essay to a selection of African Affairs articles on South Sudan documents the critical contributions of empirically rich and analytically rigorous research, highly relevant to understanding South Sudan’s crisis, led by South Sudanese scholars. This contrasts with journalism…
Multimedia
South Sudan: The price of war, the price of peace – a graphic story
In December 2013, South Sudan erupted into civil war as President Salva Kiir’s army battled rebel forces led by former Vice-President Riek Machar. Tens of thousands were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced. This cartoon tells the story of the…
Research paper
Peace and the security sector in Sudan, 2002–11
This paper examines how contests over military control were played out during peace negotiations and in the implementation of agreements (including the manipulation or violation of the terms of agreements) in Sudan between 2002 and 2011.
Research paper
Une perspective de paix pour le Soudan en 2002 ? fr
This article analyses the extent to which the international situation immediately following September 11, 2001 created the basis for an end to the civil war in Sudan. The author argues that the situation is handicapped by certain weaknesses: the internal…
Research paper
Building the nation’s body: The contested role of abortion and family planning in postwar south Sudan
This paper offers an ethnographic analysis of public health policies and interventions targeting unwanted pregnancy (family planning and abortion) in contemporary South Sudan as part of wider ‘nation-building’ after war, understood as a process of collective identity formation which projects…
Research paper
Foreign Aid In Post-Conflict Countries: The Case Of South Sudan
This paper examines the approach to foreign aid being used in South Sudan, and reflects new thinking in providing assistance to post-conflict countries.
Research paper
More than mere survival: violence, humanitarian governance, and practical material politics in a Kenyan refugee camp
This paper frames the political import of refugees’ material practices in Kakuma Refugee Camp through critical reflection on Eyal Weizman’s notion of the humanitarian present. To begin, I explore how the production of the refugee camp as a space of…
Research paper
Barriers to Institutional Childbirth in Rumbek North County, South Sudan: A Qualitative Study
South Sudan has one of the world’s poorest health indicators due to a fragile health system and a combination of socio-cultural, economic and political factors. This paper reports on a study conducted to identify barriers to utilisation of institutional childbirth…
Research paper
“We need good nutrition but we have no money to buy food”: sociocultural context, care experiences, and newborn health in two UNHCR-supported camps in South Sudan
Determinants of newborn health and survival exist across the reproductive life cycle, with many sociocultural and contextual factors influencing outcomes beyond the availability of, and access to, quality health services. To better understand key needs and opportunities to improve newborn…
Research paper
Social norms and family planning decisions in South Sudan
With a maternal mortality ratio of 789 per 100,000 live births, and a contraceptive prevalence rate of 4.7%, South Sudan has one of the worst reproductive health situations in the world. Understanding the social norms around sexuality and reproduction, across…
Research paper
Too afraid to go: fears of dignity violations as reasons for non-use of maternal health services in South Sudan
South Sudan has one of the worst health and maternal health situations in the world. While maternal health services at primary care level are not well developed, even where they exist, many women do not use them. Developing location specific…
Research paper
Resistant Resilience: Agency and Resilience Among Refugees Resisting Humanitarian Corruption in Uganda
Resilience is a dominant humanitarian-development theme. Nonetheless, some humanitarian-development programmes have demonstrably negative impacts which encourage vulnerable people to actively resist these programmes. Based on 12 months ethnographic fieldwork in a Ugandan refugee settlement during 2017–18, this paper argues refugee residents…
Report
Mobile Livelihoods: Borderland dynamics between Uganda and South Sudan
This report from the Rift Valley Institute explores the dynamics of transnational movement and networks of kin of South Sudanese and South Sudanese refugees in Uganda.
Report
“Our Hearts Have Gone Dark”: The Mental Health Impact of South Sudan’s Conflict
This report by Amnesty International describes the serious and significant mental health impact of South Sudan’s conflict to highlight the urgency for more attention and resources to improve the availability, accessibility, and quality of mental health services in the country.…
Research paper
When kleptocracy becomes insolvent: Brute causes of the civil war in South Sudan
South Sudan obtained independence in July 2011 as a kleptocracy – a militarized, corrupt neo-patrimonial system of governance. By the time of independence, the South Sudanese “political marketplace” was so expensive that the country’s comparatively copious revenue was consumed by…
Research paper
Interrupting the balance: reconsidering the complexities of conflict in South Sudan
By the start of 2014, violent conflict had erupted across much of South Sudan following initial violence in Juba on 15 December 2013. The speed with which the fighting has spread raises questions regarding the impact of national-level politics on…
Research paper
When community reintegration is not the best option: interethnic violence and the trauma of parental loss in South Sudan
Challenging the received wisdom that community reintegration is always better than institutional provision, this case study argues that institutional care of orphans should not always be considered only as a last resort but may offer greater care and protection than…
Research paper
It takes a village to raise a militia: local politics, the Nuer White Army, and South Sudan’s civil wars
Why does South Sudan continue to experience endemic, low intensity conflicts punctuated by catastrophic civil wars? Reporters and analysts often mischaracterise conflicts in the young country of South Sudan as products of divisive ‘tribal’ or ‘ethnic’ rivalries and political competition…
Research paper
Invisible Labour: The Political Economy of Reintegration in South Sudan
This article considers the 2005–12 Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) programme in South Sudan. Current DDR practice centres on ex-combatants’ reintegration through encouraging entrepreneurship and self-employment and thereby their willingness to take risks and responsibility. However, South Sudan’s DDR programme…
Research paper
How the politics of fear generated chaos in South Sudan
Soon after South Sudan achieved independence in 2011, its political landscape grew increasingly volatile. It became almost impossible for international and regional actors to address one crisis before another more serious one erupted. This article combines cultural, political, economic and…