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Abstract
In the years prior to independence, large numbers of displaced people returned to Southern Sudan. Returnees were seen to pose particular challenges in relation to land rights. But in many areas, returnees had no difficulty regaining access to land. I recount how returnees successfully assembled land for inhabitation and productive use through autochthonous modes of governance, legitimation and inscription. My study argues that the quotidian practices of inhabitance and production are as critical to assembling of land rights as more institutionalized processes of legal regulation or policy developments, the promotion of markets, or the organized use of violence or force.
Acknowledgements
This contribution owes immeasurable debts to the people of Chukudum South Sudan, and to the critical engagement of Katharyne Mitchell, Milli Lake, Tom Lavers, Lise Nelson, Simona Pagano, Carol Berger and Elena Gadjanova. Thanks also to Chris Fowler for inviting me to present this work at the Geography Coffee Hour at Penn State, and to the audience for their questions, provocations and comments. Thanks also to the anonymous reviewers whose generous and pointed comments helped me to strengthen and clarify my argument.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 The geography of displacement was varied, with the highest numbers displaced internally within the South and to the North, and fewer but still significant numbers living as refugees in neighboring countries and countries of resettlement (Elnur Citation2009). In the whole of Sudan, 5.35 million people were internally displaced in 2005 (this figure includes people displaced within the north from separate conflicts, e.g. Darfur and the Nuba mountains; IDMC Citation2006). Another 730,000 Sudanese nationals were recognized as refugees at the close of 2004 (UNHCR Citation2006).
2 However, land and property relations were contentious in the capital, Juba, and in the rapidly urbanizing state capitals and major towns (Badiey Citation2010, Citation2013; Martin and Mosel Citation2011; Leonardi Citation2013). In rural areas, conflict between communities over territory, resource rights and boundaries did occur (Rolandsen Citation2009).
3 Greater Equatoria comprises the three southernmost of Southern Sudan's 10 states – Eastern Equatoria, where this study is located, as well as Western Equatoria and Central Equatoria. Comprising a multitude of smaller ethnic groups, the Equatorians, at approximately 31 percent of the population (SSCCSE Citation2011), have historically worked together as a political bloc as a way to balance the influence of the country’s two largest ethnic groups – the Dinka and the Nuer, at approximately 35 percent and 15 percent of the population, respectively (CIA World Factbook Citation2014).
4 Participants for the survey were selected by means of a geographically stratified sampling frame, which was developed using Google Earth satellite images. However, because no reliable data on the population of the town exists and the satellite data was several months out of date, it is unclear if the sample selected was representative of the population. For this reason, data from the survey is descriptive of the sample, rather than the population as a whole.
5 The CPA mandated a 6-year transitional period from the signing of the accord in January 2005, to the referendum in January 2011 when southerners voted on whether to stay with a unified Sudan or to secede and form an independent state.
6 An in-depth discussion of the reasons for the split can be found in Collins (Citation2008), Johnson (Citation2007) and Rolandsen (Citation2005).
7 These territories are by no means fixed in the land, since historically new settlement areas were continually being subsumed into clan territories through the pioneering efforts of individual clan members (Driberg Citation1939). Historical records detailing the process of progressive territorial encroachment into new and (perhaps) unoccupied lands are substantiated by origin stories.
8 This echoes what Leonardi (Citation2013) has documented in relation to settlement and the legitimation of authority in Juba, Yei and Rumbek, though Chukudum is much smaller and more marginal to national political developments.
9 The governance of both cultivation and settlement rights continued to be mediated through cultural norms relating to family and clan membership. And within families, land rights were further mediated through marriage as well as gendered and generational relationships.
10 This account of the history of the SPLA in the area is based on informal conversations and interview data that have been triangulated through an examination of documents and records from the period, in addition to the scholarly historical research cited.
11 It is important to note that many people were very willing to support the rebels in this way, at least initially. To this day, people in the region speak with pride about their role in feeding the SPLA.
12 The IDPs arriving in Chukudum were largely ethnic Dinka from Bor, who had been targeted by a rival faction of the SPLA because Bor was the hometown of SPLA commander John Garang (Johnson Citation2007; Collins Citation2008).
13 The crisis, which many local people argue was fundamentally about resources, quickly took on ethnic overtones, as the assassinated commander was of the Dinka Bor ethnic group that dominated the political leadership of Garang's faction at that time. This caused spillover violence to erupt between the two groups in Kakuma Refugee Camp across the border in Kenya (Crisp Citation1999; Human Rights Watch Citation2002). Whether Lorot and his militia were supported by Khartoum beforehand or only turned to them for money and arms after the assassination is still hotly debated.
14 Remembering that period, a sub-chief I interviewed said ‘ … there was no one here, except the ones with guns’.
15 The use of SPLM – the Sudan People's Liberation Movement – generally refers to the political (rather than the military) arm of the SPLA.
16 All names and identifying information have been changed to preserve confidentiality.
17 Reliable numbers on returnee flows are difficult to find, as many who returned to this community were not included in official counts by assisting agencies or the local arm of the South Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Commission, the responsible government agency (but for an overview of returns across Southern Sudan during this period see IOM Citation2010). In a survey I conducted of local livelihood practices and migration history in June 2010, 75 of 79 people reported that they were displaced from the town at some point during the second civil war. Of the remaining four people, two reported that they were IDPs from other parts of Southern Sudan who settled in Chukudum in the1990s.
18 Prior to beginning of the VAR program, the UNHCR had funded the drilling of several new bore-holes and the construction of both a primary and secondary school in this area, which had previously been the bush. But the area was viewed as insecure because it was sparsely populated and on the western outskirts which were more susceptible to raiding from across the valley. Despite the investments in infrastructure, very few returnees chose to settle in this area because they had other options closer to town.
19 For a discussion of more conflictual relations relating to town growth in South Sudan, see Leonardi (Citation2013) and Badiey (Citation2010, Citation2013). Chukudum's small size and economic and political marginality may account for the differences in attitudes toward population growth compared to these other examples.
20 The positive attitude toward population growth could be traced to three main factors, one political and the others based on past experiences. First, in his development agenda, John Garang emphasized ‘taking the town to the people’ instead of bringing the people to the town (Copnall Citation2014; Motasim Citation2014). The slogan, often echoed by people in Chukudum, was a commitment to bringing the hallmarks of development – roads, schools, medical services – to rural areas that had not previously had such services. However, the statement is also a clear manifestation of the strong association between ‘the town’ and development in the minds of many Southerners. On a more practical level, being a town meant attracting infrastructure projects as well as NGO programs that provided critical support in the education, agriculture, health and sanitation sectors. Second, many of the elders and political leaders had lived through a previous return migration after the first civil war in the 1970s, and had witnessed or been part of changes (especially in terms of new agricultural techniques) that had a lasting positive effect food security and wellbeing in the area. Finally, for some of the younger generation, time spent during the conflict in cities, and densely populated refugee camps, shifted the norms around settlement patterns towards greater concentration.
21 It was not feasible to interview rank and file soldiers or the military leadership at the time of my research as all matters relating to the army, its movements and location, and its relationship with local communities were extremely sensitive during the transitional period.
22 Traders I spoke with were open in their discussions with me and emphasized their primary concern was that they be allowed to continue to run their businesses and maintain control over the plots on which their shops, stores and homes were built. The traders had also organized an association which regularly liaised with Didinga county authorities on concerns related to commerce and inter-ethnic tensions (when they arose).
23 Land rights holders still had a ranked preference in terms of who they would allow to settle on their own lands, with close family members and in-laws coming first, clan members and neighbors from displacement somewhere in the middle, and unknown co-ethnics and traders from other ethnic groups or countries coming last. Soldiers were not part of this ranking, as the community and autochthonous civil authorities ceded land in the bush for a barracks, which was where soldiers therefore belonged.
24 These claims were mediated through cultural norms relating to family and clan membership, in particular those around marriage, gender and generational relationships that largely determine land distribution and rights to other kinds of resources. For example, women marrying in to a Didinga family were accorded land rights through their husband's clan.
25 Traveling to distant gardens was not uncommon, as many families maintain multiple fields or gardens in different agro-ecological zones – some a day's walk away – to maximize crop diversity and spread risk.
26 Persistent raiding in the months following the failure of the 2009 rainy seasons limited the willingness of people to live and engage in cultivation in lowland areas of the county during the next rainy season. This area was known to be fertile, but its proximity to the western border areas where raiders from neighboring tribes were particularly active meant that several families chose not to cultivate there that season. However, when the security situation had improved, many lowland areas were again open to cultivation.
27 This stands in contrast to Yei, another area (in Central Equatoria) displaced Dinka Bor settled after the 1991 split, where many arrived with their cattle. There, the struggles over land and grazing rights have become quite contentious, and occasionally violent (Sluga Citation2011).
28 While some of the Dinka Bor traders had lived in the town for more than a decade, much of that time had been characterized by both low-level and open conflict with the autochthonous Didinga community who retained control of the nearby mountains. The tensions meant that when they traveled outside of the town, they stuck to well-worn transportation corridors. Additionally, as per the terms of the agreement relating to the Chukudum Crisis, soldiers who had a history of expropriation and abuse of civilians were transferred to other areas (SPLM/Didinga Peace Statement Citation2002). And after the signing of the CPA in 2005, a significant minority of soldiers ‘self-demobilized’, making the decision to return to their home communities (Munive Citation2013, 21). This cycling of personnel meant that soldiers living in the town at the time of the research had limited familiarity with both the physical and social landscape in the vicinity.
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Léonie S. Newhouse
Léonie S. Newhouse is a research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity. She earned her doctorate in geography from the University of Washington and an MSc in forced migration from the University of Oxford. Her research is broadly centered around the interdisciplinary study of humanitarianism, displacement and crisis migration, urbanization and post-conflict development in South Sudan, the Horn and East Africa more broadly.