The Abyei area, which straddles the border of the two Sudans, had been a theatre of war since 1965. In 2016, the Amiet market emerged from a remote forest grove to initiate a new kind of social contract making. It has quickly become a melting pot of various communities and created space for nurturing new relations but has also generated tensions that may threaten its own survival. As stakeholders negotiate a solution to the political…