“I Want My Children to Know Sudan”: Narrating the Long-Distance Intimacies of Diasporic Politics

Abstract

Attending to the gendered intimacies of diasporic politics offers rich insights for studies of transnationalism, nationalism, and citizenship. This article focuses on South Sudan and the narrative accounts of thirty U.S.-resettled women collected in the transitional era prior to independence in 2011. Their stories point to the embodied nature of political subjectivity enacted during this time through everyday parental acts in the United States, care for family in South Sudan, and emergent community-based engagement and activism in and between both places. This work extends studies of transnationalism, nationalism, and citizenship by drawing on the productive junctures of feminist political and emotional geographies. It does so first by attending to oft-marginalized and gendered subjects and spaces of politics and, second, by recognizing the intimate and affective scalings through which long-distance political subjects distantly engage with, take responsibility for, and actively remake their home. Here I pay attention to the work of feelings: grief, nostalgia, worry, excitement, ambivalence, and anger that drive and are evoked by long-distance nationalisms and citizenships. Intimately binding distant places, people, and moments, they demonstrate the emotional valence of diasporic politics. Finally, this article calls for empirical attention to new nationalisms and citizenships emerging through places like the contemporary South Sudan, those with histories of multiple colonialisms, marked by shifting geometries of power, and shaped from afar by the political intimacies of the diaspora.

关照离散政治的性别化亲密性, 对跨国主义、国族主义与公民权研究提供了丰富的洞见。本文聚焦南苏丹, 以及在 2011 年独立之前的过渡时期所搜集的三十位重新安置于美国的女性叙事。她们的故事, 指涉了此一时期透过以下行动所生成的政治主体性的体现本质: 在美国从事的日常家长活动、照料在南苏丹的家人, 以及在两地之中和之间萌生的以社群为基础的参与及倡议 。本研究透过运用女性主义政治及情绪地理学的生产性交汇, 延伸有关跨国主义、国族主义与公民权的研究。为推进上述主张, 本文首先将关照经常在政治中受到边缘化且性别化的主体与空间, 接着指认远距的政治主体藉以参与、负责并积极再造其家庭的亲密情感的尺度化。我将于此关注驱动远距国族主义及公民权、并进一步由远距国族主义及公民权所引发的感觉作用: 悲伤、怀旧、担忧、兴奋、矛盾与愤怒。这些感觉亲密地将分隔的地方、人们与时刻联繫在一起, 证明了离散政治的情绪效价。最后, 本文呼吁对崭新的国族主义和公民权进行经验研究, 此般国族主义和公民权, 係萌发于当代南苏丹等具有多重殖民历史、以权力几何转移为特徵、并由远距离散者的政治亲密性形塑之地。

Estudiar las intimidades de género de la política diaspórica proporciona una visión de gran valía para la investigación sobre transnacionalismo, nacionalismo y ciudadanía. Este artículo se concentra en el Sudán meridional y en las narrativas de sus experiencias recogidas entre treinta mujeres reasentadas en Estados Unidos durante la era de transición anterior a la independencia de aquel país en 2011. Sus historias apuntan a la naturaleza íntima de la subjetividad política que se propugnó en ese tiempo mediante actos paternales cotidianos en Estados Unidos, al cuidado de la familia en Sudán del sur, y los emergentes compromisos de base comunitaria, junto con activismo ejercido entre ambos lugares y dentro de los mismos. Este trabajo amplía los estudios sobre transnacionalismo, nacionalismo y ciudadanía, con apoyo en las coyunturas productivas de las geografías políticas y emocionales feministas. Esto se logra, primero, ocupándonos de los sujetos y espacios de la política, a menudo marginados y discriminados por género, y, segundo, reconociendo la escala asignada a lo íntimo y lo afectivo, por medio de lo cual los sujetos políticos alejados se comprometen a distancia a rehacer el hogar y responsabilizarse del mismo. En este estudio pongo atención en el trabajo de los sentimientos: aflicción, nostalgia, preocupación, excitación, ambivalencia e ira, que alimentan los nacionalismos y ciudadanías a distancia, y los evocan. Ligando entre sí los lugares distantes, la gente y los momentos, los sentimientos demuestran la valencia emocional de la política diaspórica. Por último, este artículo clama porque se preste atención empírica a los nuevos nacionalismos y ciudadanías que aparecen en lugares como el contemporáneo Sudán del Sur, o en aquellos con historias de colonialismos múltiples, marcados por las cambiantes geometrías del poder y configurados de lejos por las intimidades políticas de la diáspora.

Key Words:

• citizenship
• diaspora
• gender
• nationalism
• South Sudan

关键词:

• 公民权
• 离散
• 性别
• 国族主义
• 南苏丹

Palabras clave:

• ciudadanía
• diáspora
• género
• nacionalismo
• Sudán del Sur

Notes

Rita and Susan are South Sudanese refugee women, resettled and interviewed in the United States. Tabitha is a second-generation South Sudanese American interviewed while volunteering in South Sudan. All names are pseudonyms.

Southern refers to those from the southern region of pre­independence Sudan. South Sudanese refers to citizens of the newly independent nation. I use South Sudan or the south, as interviewees did, to refer to the nation, both before and after it became a state.

Originally associated with Jewish, Greek, and Armenian dispersions (Glick Schiller and Fouron 2001), Clifford's (1994) work enriched the analytical value of the term diaspora, highlighting diasporic groundings or “roots” in particular homelands, as well as the mobility, deterritorialization, and transnationalism of diasporic “routes” (Clifford 1994, cited in Blunt 2005, 10). This definition encompasses groups with no personal history of migration who feel connected to a mythical or real homeland (Reddock 2007; Campt and Thomas 2008).

Condominium rule is a term in international law referring to a territory that is controlled by two or more sovereign powers.

Estimated figures are based on interviews with the International Rescue Committee (June 2006), Southern Sudanese Community of Washington (October 2006), and members of the Puget Sound community (September 2006).

Collected in August 2008 with Jennifer Erickson and used with her permission.