This paper aims to contribute to debates about humanitarian governance and insecurity in post-conflict situations. It takes the case of South Sudan to explore the relations between humanitarian agencies, the international community, and local authorities, and the ways international and local forms of power become interrelated and contested, and to what effect. The paper is based on eight months of ethnographic research in various locations in South Sudan between 2011 and 2013, in which experiences…
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CSRF Research Repository
The CSRF Research Repository aims to support greater contextual knowledge for policy makers, programme managers, and implementers by providing a searchable repository of research, analysis, and resources, and providing periodic updates on new research and analysis.
This article examines the role of political mandates in including or excluding civil society in the negotiation processes mediated by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in South Sudan and by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in Zimbabwe. It argues that the mandates determined the issue of inclusivity by synthesizing the mediating organizations’ normative considerations and practical requirements and by enabling the organizations’ narrative of the conflict to dominate the negotiations at the expense…
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 nature of governance for their country. In South Sudan, however, political actors—with international support—established conditions that reduced such complex democratic processes to narrow technical matters. Equating self-determination with secession consolidated political and military domination in…
Why do some peace agreements end armed conflicts whereas others do not? Previous studies have primarily focused on the relation between warring parties and the provisions included in peace agreements. Prominent mediators, however, have emphasised the importance of stakeholders at various levels for the outcome of peace agreements. To match the experience of these negotiators we apply a level-of-analysis approach to examine the contextual circumstances under which peace agreements are concluded. While prominent within the…
In the oil fields of Thar Jath, South Sudan, increasing salinity of drinking water was observed together with human incompatibilities and rise in livestock mortalities. Hair analysis was used to characterize the toxic exposure of the population. Hair samples of volunteers from four communities with different distance from the center of the oil field (Koch 23 km, n = 24; Leer 50 km, n = 26; Nyal 110 km, n = 21; and Rumbek 220…
Following South Sudanese independence in 2011, land reform became a major aspect of state building, partly to address historical injustices and partly to avoid future conflicts around land. In the process, land became a trigger for conflicts, sometimes between communities with no histories of “ethnic conflict.” Drawing on cases in two rural areas in Yei River County in South Sudan, this paper shows that contradictions in the existing legal frameworks on land are mainly to…
This paper examines the extent to which women’s issues are addressed in the 2015 Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan. It contends that while women’s issues are provided for in some parts of the agreement, opportunities for the inclusion of women were limited by the structure of the peace talks. Moreover, the agreement does not provide for bloc representation of women in the transitional arrangements, which can limit…
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 over oil wealth. More nuanced analyses by regional experts have focused almost exclusively on infighting among elite politicians and military officers based in Juba and other major cities who use patronage networks to ethnicise conflicts….
Women’s organizations in South Sudan embrace ‘bottom-up’ approach (Annuka, 2015), to peace building, while also pushing for minimum 25% percent quota (Itto, 2006: 58) and later 30% quota (Aweil james Ajith, 2013; Case, 2016) at the decision making levels as stipulated in the constitution of the country. Many of these organizations are off-shoots of women’s movements during the decades of war and after the independence of South Sudan in July 2011, many were formally registered…
Protracted conflict and development in South Sudan: A feminist analysis of women’s subjugation in the making of a nation argues that international interventions in South Sudan from the period of British colonization to present day South Sudan perpetuate and [re]inscribe formations of women’s oppression and agency. Foreign presence affects identity constructions, conflict, and governance. I demonstrate how international interventions, militarization, and protracted conflict, compromise women’s rights, health, and self-determination as they permeate understandings of gender,…
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