https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3467-7012
![Sample our Area Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5922/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Area-Studies.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
The article offers a nuanced account of how identities are negotiated and contested in South Sudan, by focusing on how Murle and ŋalam identities were deployed in different ways in different places in overlapping periods during a time of armed conflict. As such, it explores the interplay between political violence and the instrumental deployment of ethnicity. Focusing on the 2012–2014 period of war between South Sudan's government and a largely Murle rebellion, it unpacks the longstanding Murle stereotyping as ‘fierce and hostile’ – an image fostered by the interlocution of more powerful neighbours in the colonial encounters and sustained by their dominance in subsequent governance structures. The article specifically discusses how Murle agricultural communities from Boma found protection strategies by activating temporary sub-ethnic identities and navigating the violence of being Murle. This challenges the “naturalised” linkages between modes of subsistence or ecology, and identity, and demonstrates how spatial movements affect the instrumental narrativisation of ethnic identities. The article argues for the continual interplay of ethnicity in relation to the state and its strategies and opportunities. Identity-making and identity-politics are dialctical processes – deployed by the state as much as by those on the receiving end as a source of protection from violence.
Acknowledgements
The article is based on my doctoral research and benefits immensely from invaluable feedback from my then supervisor Tania Kaiser. I am also very grateful to Cherry Leonardi, Douglas Johnson and Wendy James's feedback that has informed my doctoral thesis and thus this article. I also thank Padmini Iyer, Joshua Craze and two anonymous peer reviewers for their helpful feedback to an earlier version. My greatest thanks are to my Murle research collaborators and friends who have helped navigate my knowledge of Murle society and have contributed so much to this research but whose names are withheld to safeguard their safety.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Interview paramount chief of Pibor ŋantho Kavula, Juba, 28 June 2013.
2 Sung by the late paramount chief ŋantho Kavula, Juba, 28 June 2013; translated with his son Kaka ŋantho. Recording on file with author. The song can be accessed through Felix da Costa, “Former Paramount Chief Ŋantho Kavula on Murle Origins and Unity”.
3 Impey, “Performing Transitional Justice”.
4 Felix da Costa, “The Politics of Murle Identity”.
5 Laudati, “Victims of Discourse”.
6 Interview in South Sudan President Response to Save Yar Campaign, 2008. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhsQb8UR7AQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player.
7 Office of the Minister, Ministry of General Education and Instruction, “Press Statement on 2022–2023 Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE) Examinations”.
8 Andretta, “A Reconsideration of the Basis of Group Cohesion”; Felix da Costa, “The Politics of Murle Identity”.
9 Ibid.
10 Interview paramount chief of Pibor ŋantho Kavula, Juba, 28 June 2013.
11 Kaldor and de Waal, “Identity Formation and the Political Marketplace”; Pendle, “The ‘Nuer of Dinka Money’ and the Demands of the Dead”.
12 Rolandsen and Anderson, “Violence in the Contemporary Political History of Eastern Africa”; Anderson and Rolandsen, “Violence as Politics in Eastern Africa, 1940–1990”.
13 Hutchinson and Pendle, “Violence, Legitimacy, and Prophecy”; Thomas, South Sudan: A Slow Liberation; Marko, “Negotiations and Morality”; Finnström, Living with Bad Surroundings; Jok and Hutchinson, “Sudan's Prolonged Second Civil War”.
14 Broch-Due, Violence and Belonging; Felix da Costa, “The Politics of Murle Identity”.
15 Mohamed-Salih and Markakis, Ethnicity and the State in Eastern Africa; Werbner and Ranger, Postcolonial Identities in Africa.
16 Barth, Ethnic Groups and Boundaries; Markakis, “Ethnic Conflict & the State in the Horn of Africa”; Eriksen, Ethnicity and Nationalism.
17 Dunn, “Identity, Space and the Political Economy of Conflict in Central Africa,” 59; Schlee and Watson, Changing Identifications and Alliances in North-East Africa / Sudan, Uganda and the Ethiopia-Sudan Borderlands.
18 Dunn, “Identity, Space and the Political Economy of Conflict in Central Africa,” 56–57.
19 Tornay, “The Omo Murle Enigma,” 125.
20 Mkutu, “Pastoralism and Conflict in the Horn of Africa”.
21 Spear, “Being ‘Maasai’, but Not ‘People of Cattle,’” 124–5.
22 Ibid., 120.
23 Andretta, “Symbolic Continuity, Material Discontinuity, and Ethnic Identity”.
24 Malkki, Purity and Exile, 3.
25 James, “Uduk Resettlement”.
26 James, Kwanim Pa; James, “War & ‘Ethnic Visibility’”.
27 Laudati, “Victims of Discourse,” 21.
28 Ibid.
29 McCallum and Okech, “Drivers of Conflict in Jonglei State”; United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner and United Nations Mission in South Sudan, “Armed Violence Involving Community-Based Militias in Greater Jonglei, January – August 2020”.
30 Pitt Rivers Museum, B.A. Lewis Papers, Box 1, Item 12 (1/1/12): “Murlei Notes”, ‘Note on the Murle Tribes (Plains Section)’, no page.
31 Thomas, South Sudan.
32 McCallum, “The Murle and the Security Complex in the South Sudan-Ethiopian Borderlands”; Felix da Costa, “Changing Power Among Murle Chiefs”.
33 See for instance Jack Rice interview with President Salva Kiir on behalf of the Save Yar Foundation in South Sudan President Response to Save Yar Campaign, 2008. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhsQb8UR7AQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player.
34 Thomas, South Sudan; Rolandsen and Breidlid, “What Is Youth Violence in Jonglei?”
35 Smith, “The Murle – Report of a Preliminary Enquiry into Reproduction Rate”; Wendy Dyment, “Lekuangole STD Intervention – Final Report December 3, 2003 – February 28, 2004”.
36 United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner and United Nations Mission in South Sudan, “Armed Violence Involving Community-Based Militias in Greater Jonglei, January – August 2020,” 13.
37 Small Arms Survey, “My Neighbour, My Enemy”.
38 Thomas, South Sudan: A Slow Liberation.
39 Felix da Costa, Pendle, and Tubiana, “What Is Happening Now Is Not Raiding, It's War”.
40 Garfield, Violence and Victimization after Civilian Disarmament; Human Rights Watch, “‘There Is No Protection’ Insecurity and Human Rights in Southern Sudan”.
41 McCallum and Okech, “Drivers of Conflict in Jonglei State”.
42 Amnesty International, “South Sudan”; Human Rights Watch, “They Are Killing Us”.
43 Todisco, “Real but Fragile”.
44 McCallum, “Murle Identity in Post-Colonial South Sudan,” 11–24.
45 Thomas, South Sudan, 19.
46 Kaldor and de Waal, “Identity Formation and the Political Marketplace”.
47 Santschi, “Briefing”; Kaldor and de Waal, “Identity Formation and the Political Marketplace”.
48 Amnesty International, “Church Leaders Detained in South Sudan”.
49 Sudan Tribune, “S. Sudan Warns Security Forces, Militias over Violence against Civilians”. 17 May 2013. http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article46610.
50 Human Rights Watch, “'They Are Killing Us”.
51 Sudan Tribune, “S. Sudan Warns Security Forces, Militias over Violence against Civilians”. 17 May 2013. http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article46610.
52 Interview male Pibor IDP, Juba, 7 June 2013.
53 Felix da Costa, Pendle, and Tubiana, “What Is Happening Now Is Not Raiding, It's War”.
54 Felix da Costa, “The Politics of Murle Identity”.
55 Sudan Tribune. “SPLA Denies Jonglei Rebels’ Claim on Capture of Boma”. 8 May 2013. http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article46490; James Deng Dimo. “SPLA Recaptures Key Jonglei Town, Advancing Elsewhere”. Gurtong, 19 May 2013. http://www.gurtong.net/ECM/Editorial/tabid/124/ctl/ArticleView/mid/519/articleId/11300/SPLA-Recaptures-Key-Jonglei-Town-Advancing-Elsewhere.aspx.
56 Spear, “Being ‘Maasai’, but Not ‘People of Cattle’”; Galaty, “Being ‘Maasai’; Being ‘People-of-Cattle’”.
57 Felix da Costa, “The Politics of Murle Identity”.
58 Boma Peace Meeting, Boma, 15 November 2013.
59 Boma politician, Boma Peace Meeting, Juba, 12 September 2013.
60 Former local authority, Boma Peace Meeting, Juba, 12 September 2013.
61 For a discussion on spiritual red chiefs, see Felix da Costa, “Changing Power Among Murle Chiefs.”
62 Interview male IDP from Boma, Juba, 9 December 2015.
63 Interview red chief Peter Kuju, Boma, 15 November 2013.
64 Paramount chief Logidang Lom, Boma Peace Meeting, Juba, 13 September 2013.
65 Fieldnotes, Boma Peace Meeting, Boma, 15 November 2013.
66 Ibid.
67 Interview Logidang Lom, Kaiwa Boma, 10 August 2014.
68 Feyissa, “The Cultural Construction of State Borders”.
69 Discussion with 2 male refugees, Dimma, Ethiopia, September 2013.
70 Practically the only written reference, Bender (“The Surma Language Group”, 11–12) notes the ‘ŋalam (I)alam, “the people without cattle”)’ lived on the Ethiopian border.
71 Interview male refugee 2, Dimma, Ethiopia, 5 September 2013.
72 Interview male refugee 1, Dimma, Ethiopia, 6 September 2013.
73 Interview male Boma IDP 1, Kapoeta, 19 July 2013.
74 Interview two female IDPs, Kapoeta, 17 July 2013.
75 Interview male Boma IDP 2, Kapoeta, 19 July 2013.
76 Interview male Pibor IDP 1, Juba, 13 June 2013.
77 Interview male Pibor IDP 2, Juba, 3 June 2013.
78 Hammond, This Place Will Become Home, 26.
79 Interview Pibor IDP 1, Juba, 19 June 2013.
80 Interview Pibor woman hosting IDPs, Juba, 27 June 2013.
81 James, “Uduk Resettlement,” 196.
82 Spear and Waller, Being Maasai.
83 Nyelerum Nyabok, Boma Peace Meeting, Juba, 13 September 2013.
84 Santschi, “Briefing”.
85 Sahlins, Islands of History, 27.