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….
repository
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 an attempt to build a memorial to local victims of civil war in South Sudan. The memorial commemorates the mass execution of civilians in 1964, close to the town of Gogrial in a rural part of South Sudan. During this massacre, local people were killed and their bodies piled up into a macabre structure by the side of the road, as a warning against supporting the Anya-Nya insurgency. This is an example…
This colllection of articles (2017) outlines how community defence groups have mobilised over the past 30 years (and earlier) to respond to insecurity in the absence of state protection. Download
Decades of militarized, violent conflict and elite wealth acquisition have created a common rupture in shared landscapes between communities of the western Dinka and Nuer (South Sudan). Through the remaking of these landscapes, governments and their wars have indirectly reshaped political identities and relationships. Networks of complex relationships have used this space for migration, marriage, trade and burial. Since the government wars of the 1980s, people from both Dinka and Nuer communities have participated in…
Africa’s newest nation has a long history. Often considered remote and isolated from the rest of Africa, and usually associated with the violence of slavery and civil war, South Sudan has been an arena for a complex mixing of peoples, languages, and beliefs. The nation’s diversity is both its strength and a challenge as its people attempt to overcome the legacy of decades of war to build a new economic, political, and national future. Most…
This article argues, drawing on research in a Dinka-speaking part of South Sudan, that conflicts over local boundaries are rooted in the existence of different border paradigms and in subsequent attempts to resolve, sometimes violently, competing moral claims on the landscape. Link to publication
This article recounts how, in the years prior to independence in 2011, returnees successfully assembled land for inhabitation and productive use through autochthonous modes of governance, legitimation and inscription. Link to publication
The following short sections point at some aspects of spear masters and their role in mechanisms of conflict resolution/reconciliation in South Sudan. The document has a focus on spear masters and Dinka communities. However, important aspects are similar/relevant also in other communities. Link to publication
This document reviews the literature on the history, organization, and operation of the white army in the context of the civil war that erupted in December 2013. Based on interviews with white army members, it seeks to understand their motivation, their understanding of the civil war and the peace agreement and what they want for the future of South Sudan. Download
This article analyses the teaching and learning of South Sudan history from 1955–2005 in secondary schools in South Sudan with a specific focus on national unity. The article argues that the national narrative of South Sudan is still closely tied to enemy images of the former enemy of Sudan in the north, while internal ethnic tensions are suppressed and excluded from the official national narrative taught in the classroom. Download
Curious to broaden your search to Sudan?
Try our sister facility CSF