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Research paper
Gendered (in)security in South Sudan: masculinities and hybrid governance in Imatong state
Despite the end of civil war in 2005, many people in South Sudan continued to experience deep insecurity and forms of violent conflict. This sense of insecurity was exacerbated by the lack of state protection and perceived injustice in power…
Research paper
Dr Livingstone, I Presume? Evangelicals, Africa and Faith-Based Humanitarianism
Humanitarianism is a principal means through which Northern-based Christian groups intervene into sub-Saharan African states. However, current scholarship neglects the agentive roles played by religious actors in the delivery of mainstream aid. This secularises humanitarian governance, “others” religious actors and…
Research paper
Context Matters: The Conventional DDR Template is Challenged in South Sudan
The disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) programme as implemented in South Sudan provides a perfect entry point to study the interaction between an international intervention and local contexts. The article describes and analyses the DDR programme in South Sudan as…
Research paper
Contesting the militarization of the places where they met: the landscapes of the western Nuer and Dinka (South Sudan)
Decades of violent conflict and elite wealth acquisition have created a common rupture in shared landscapes between communities of the western Dinka and Nuer (South Sudan). Since the government wars of the 1980s, people from both Dinka and Nuer communities…
Research paper
Poisoning at the periphery: allocating responsibility across the Uganda/South Sudan borderlands
This paper presents ethnographic evidence from three sites across the Uganda/South Sudan borderlands. At each location, procedures to identify alleged poisoners were documented. Novel voting processes were initiated by hybrid local authorities. Addressing widespread anxiety about proximate wrong-doing seemed to…
Research paper
Integrated disease surveillance and response in humanitarian context: South Sudan experience
This paper reviews the progress and outcomes of rolling out IDSR in South Sudan, using epidemiological and program data for 2019-20 to provide detailed assessments of surveillance priorities, core and support functions, and surveillance system structure and quality. Progress has…
Research paper
Spatial accessibility to basic public health services in South Sudan
This article develops a GIS model of spatial health access metrics nationally and sub-nationally in South Sudan. Using publicly available data on health facilities, population, land cover and use, road networks and elevation, the authors found that in 2016 only…
Research paper
Providing health services during a civil war: the experience of a garrison town in South Sudan
This article explores the social and political dynamics of health service provision in and around an important garrison town in South Sudan, during the second Sudanese civil war (1983–2005). Drawing on semi-structured interviews, informal conversations and focus group discussions, the…
Research paper
‘That thing of human rights’: discourse, emergency assistance, and sexual violence in South Sudan’s current civil war
One of the most widely covered aspects of the current conflict in South Sudan has been the use sexual violence by rival factions of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) and other armed groups. While this has had the positive…
Report
Localising humanitarian aid during armed conflict Learning from the histories and creativity of South Sudanese NGOs
This report moves beyond abstract assumptions and global-level debates to understand the reality of the struggles and strategies of local and national organisations during complex emergencies. We focus on the histories, politicoeconomic dynamics and everyday realities of South Sudanese NGOs…
Working paper
Going home? A systematic review of the literature on displacement, return and cycles of violence
Starting from the complex reality of return, this paper recognizes that cycles of violence, displacement and return are intimately related and often inherently part of one another. This paper offers a critical overview and discussion of scholarly and policy-oriented literature…
Research paper
‘And Then He Switched off the Phone’: Mobile Phones, Participation and Political Accountability in South Sudan’s Western Equatoria State
This paper investigates the impact of mobile phones in situations of political contestation or conflict. According to theory, mobile phones could play a positive role in building a more accountable government, and with that, contribute to statebuilding. We examine to…
Research paper
The Lord’s Resistance Army in Sudan: A History and Overview
The ongoing peace talks between the Government of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army/Movement (LRA/M) in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, have created renewed international interest in the conflict in northern Uganda. While the negotiations have proved extremely difficult,…
Research paper
Fettered Self-determination: South Sudan’s Narrowed Path to Secession
The interpretation of self-determination as a vote for secession shaped the state that South Sudan has become since the 2011 referendum. Self-determination, this paper argues, is a democratic political process in which citizens determine their preferred form of statehood and…
Research paper
‘A situation of security pluralism’ along South Sudan’s borders with the Democratic Republic of Congo
By comparing how a security concern along South Sudan’s border with the DRC– the presence of the Lord’s Resistance Army –was interpreted and responded to, the article shows border security practices here are improvised, contradictory and contested, and serve to…
Book chapter
Going home: Land, return and reintegration in Southern Sudan and the Three Areas
The end of the war between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement in 2005 has generated the return of an estimated 2.4 million IDPs and refugees to Southern Sudan and the three transitional areas (Abyei, Southern…
Book chapter
Why humanitarian organizations need to tackle land issues
Humanitarian organizations need to consider land issues for three sets of reasons. First, land crises are central to why humanitarian crises happen, and why they take the form that they do. Second, humanitarian responses, both during the height of crisis…
Research paper
Behind the scenes: International NGOs’ influence on reproductive health policy in Malawi and South Sudan
Global health donors increasingly embrace international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) as partners, often relying on them to conduct political advocacy in recipient countries, especially in controversial policy domains like reproductive health. Although INGOs are the primary recipients of donor funding, they…
Research paper
Men’s perceptions of women’s reproductive health in South Sudan
This paper draws on a qualitative study (n = 52) and applies a political ecology of health framework to examine men’s perceptions of women’s reproductive health in South Sudan. The findings suggest that political practices of place making configure men’s views of…
Research paper
Crisis responses, opportunity, and public authority during Covid-19’s first wave in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and South Sudan
Discussions on African responses to Covid-19 have focused on the state and its international backers. Far less is known about a wider range of public authorities, including chiefs, humanitarians, criminal gangs, and armed groups. This paper investigates how the pandemic…
Research paper
‘And Then He Switched off the Phone’: Mobile Phones, Participation and Political Accountability in South Sudan’s Western Equatoria State
This paper uses qualitative and quantitative original data to investigate the impact of mobile phones in situations of political contestation or conflict. We derive hypotheses from theories in general political science, and on the role of mobile phones specifically. These…
Research paper
The Lord’s Resistance Army in Sudan: A history and overview
This study examines the military history of the LRA in Sudan, the prospects for ending the conflict and the main challenges facing the peace talks.
Research paper
Fettered Self-determination: South Sudan’s Narrowed Path to Secession
The interpretation of self-determination as a vote for secession shaped the state that South Sudan has become since the 2011 referendum. Self-determination, this paper argues, is a democratic political process in which citizens determine their preferred form of statehood and…
Research paper
A Hard Homecoming: Lessons Learned from the Reception Center Process in Northern Uganda: An Independent Study
This independent report has been commissioned by USAID and UNICEF to examine assumptions and evidence about the needs and experiences of children and adults who have been forced to serve under the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), and have subsequently escaped,…
Research paper
‘A situation of security pluralism’ along South Sudan’s borders with the Democratic Republic of the Congo
This article compares two cases of securitization along South Sudan’s border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. By comparing how a security concern – the presence of the Lord’s Resistance Army – was interpreted and responded to, the article…
Research paper
South Sudan’s Civil War Will Not End with a Peace Deal
In early 2017, the government of South Sudan declared that parts of the country had been hit by severe famine. This famine was another sign of the many ways in which a disastrous war was killing people. South Sudan had…
Background report
Southern Sudan at Odds with Itself: Dynamics of Conflict and Predicaments of Peace
This report aims to clarify reasons for increased intra-south violence in South Sudan. By reflecting on how people living and working in Southern Sudan experienced events since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), this report looks at ways in which intra-southern…
Research paper
Deals and Dealings: Inconclusive Peace and Treacherous Trade along the South Sudan-Uganda Border
Since Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed, its border with Uganda has become a hub of activity. Contrasting developments on the Ugandan side of the border with those on the South Sudanese side, the paper draws on empirical fieldwork…
Briefing
Expanding the Reach of Justice and Accountability in South Sudan
This policy brief explores options to consider in expanding the reach of justice and accountability processes as part of any post-conflict transition in South Sudan. The brief is structured in three sections. After a short introduction, the first section examines…
Briefing
The Legacy of Kokora in South Sudan
This briefing paper presents a historical case study on Kokora, a word associated with the decentralization policy enacted in southern Sudan in 1983. The policy divided the semi-autonomous Southern Region in Sudan, into three smaller administrative regions. While the events…
Background report
‘Land Belongs to the Community’: Demystifying the ‘Global Land Grab’ in Southern Sudan
Sudan is among the global ‘hotspots’ for large-scale land acquisitions. Although most were thought to occur in the country’s north, recent research indicates a surprising number of large-scale land acquisitions have taken place in the South in recent years. Now…
Research paper
Gender relations and women’s reproductive health in South Sudan
Drawing on Connell’s relational theory of gender, the authors of this study conducted focus group discussion and interviews with Fertit women in South Sudan concerning their ability to control their reproductive lives. Women reported little choice over the childbearing demands…
Research paper
Health Sector Recovery in Early Post-Conflict Environments: Experience from Southern Sudan
Health sector recovery in post-conflict settings presents an opportunity for reform: analysis of policy processes can provide useful lessons. The case of southern Sudan is assessed through interviews, literature review, and by drawing on experiences of former technical advisers to…
Background report
Livelihoods, Access to Services and Perceptions of Governance: An Analysis of Pibor County, South Sudan from the Perspective of Displaced People
Based on qualitative interviews in Juba with displaced people from Pibor County in 2013, this article examined internal state-building processes, international engagement with the state, and livelihoods and response in rural Pibor County. The authors focus in particular on how…
Book chapter
South Sudan-Sudan Cross-Border Relations. In: State Building and Development in South Sudan
As a contribution to international, regional and national processes aimed at informing state building in South Sudan, the African Research and Resource Forum in partnership with University of Juba, organised a two-day international dialogue called “State Building and Development in…
Working paper
Civil Wars and State Formation: Violence and the Politics of Legitimacy in Angola, Côte d’Ivoire and South Sudan
Civil wars destroy existing political orders, shape new ones, and play crucial roles in the dynamics of state formation. This working paper is based on a 2-year research project reflecting on the social construction of order and legitimacy during and…
