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Abstract
As South Sudan prepares for a referendum on independence in 2011, heightened nationalist expression within popular and political discourse reveals a messier and more openly disputed conception of the ideal Southern Sudanese woman. In this article I examine one site for debate in the diaspora, the US based Miss South Sudan beauty pageant. Highlighting the perseverance and power of the Woman-as-Nation discourse, I read the contest as a politically significant expression of a ‘South Sudanese’ national identity, with elements of the advertising, organization and the performance itself promoting a particularly faith, race and class based role model. This ideal is deeply politicized, linked both to the long history of conflict in Sudan and contemporary political and social shifts around gender. Miss South Sudan straddles traditional and modern notions of womanhood and women's patriotism revealing productive contestations around femininity and empowerment in the post-conflict period. This analysis highlights the troubling of gender at work in the diaspora and the conflicting visions for women in the new nation.
Acknowledgements
I am very grateful to Cynthia Enloe, Lucy Jarosz, Lynn Thomas and Jan Bardsley, and to the three anonymous reviewers, for their helpful comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this article. In addition I would like to thank the Miss South Sudan-USA pageant judges, participants and organizers who took time to complete interviews with me and who allowed me access to pageant materials. This research was in part supported by the Cultural Geography and Africa Specialty Groups of the Association of American Geographers.
Notes
Speech extract from the first Miss South Sudan pageant, June 2006. www.misssouthsudan.com/thewordmotive.htm (accessed January 2008).
www.misssouthsudan.com/ (accessed January 2008).
Guest speech at the first Miss South Sudan Pageant, June 2006. www.misssouthsudan.com/thewordmotive.htm (accessed January 2008).
Although difficult to estimate accurately, there were approximately 527,000 Southern Sudanese living outside of the country in 2007, a reduction from 635,000 just before the peace agreement was signed as refugees have begun to return home (UNHCR Citation2008).
Given its semi-autonomous but not yet sovereign state, South Sudan does not have a formal embassy in Washington, DC, but instead a ‘mission’ which carries out a very similar function.
www.misssouthsudan.com.au/organisation.php (accessed January 2008).
Miss South Sudan promoters encourage (certain) women to enter the 2007 event. Available at www.misssouthsudan.com/beautycontest.htm (accessed January 2008).
www.misssouthsudan.com/missionsstatement.htm (accessed January 2008).
Listserve communication 17 June 2006 (accessed January 2008).
www.misssouthsudan.com/the wordandthemotive.htm (accessed January 2008).
Listserve communication 23 April 2007 (accessed January 2008).
Although a powerfully raced imaginary, these racial attributes do not in reality fit rigidly with ethnic identity, such that for example many Sudanese men and women who identify as ‘Arabic’ may still be very dark-skinned.
Listserve communication 19 July 2007 (accessed January 2008).
Listserve communication 19 July 2007 (accessed January 2008).
Website forum communication 11 August 2007. Available at www.sudanforum.net (accessed January 2008).
Listserve communication 23 April 2007 (accessed January 2008).
Interestingly, in Peter Alegi's Citation(2008) recent work on a contest for garment factory workers in South Africa he notes that the contest had no such restrictions on marital status or motherhood. The only condition for entry was membership in the union. He suggests that this inclusive format works to position the pageant as a ‘training ground for self-governance and informal democratic practice’ (2008: 39), inculcating women without restriction into a ‘patriotic capitalism’ and in providing the women who organized and participated in the event a greater sense of ownership and control.
www.misssouthsudan.com (accessed January 2008).
The term ‘Amarespectable’ is derived from Xhosa and English and was used to denote those Africans who embraced mission Christianity and held elite ambitions (Thomas Citation2006: 466).
The option for a swimsuit section is widely contested and unresolved in the diaspora. The Miss South Sudan website even had a page where viewers could vote on its inclusion in the 2008 pageant. One organizer seemed keen to include it, but was sensitive to the delicacy of the issue (interview 9 January 2008).
Listserve communication 23 April 2007 (accessed January 2008).
Listserve communication 24 April 2007 (accessed January 2008).
Listserve communication 14 April 2007 (accessed January 2008).
Listserve communication 14 April 2007 (accessed January 2008).
Listserve communication 14 April 2007 (accessed January 2008).
Listserve communication 14 April 2007 (accessed January 2008).
Including the Wunlit People to People Peace Process held in 1993, a grassroots effort to heal internal conflicts within the southern Sudan following the 1991 factional split of the SPLM/A, which brought together 800 delegates, one-third of whom were women.
www.misssouthsudan.com/home (accessed January 2008).
www.misssouthsudan.com/home (accessed January 2008).
However, women's rights advocates also supported the pageant and representatives of the South Sudan Women's Empowerment Network, a well-recognized women's rights group, were invited to speak at the 2006 and 2007 events.
This ‘25%’ refers to the new constitution of the South Sudan created after the signing of the CPA which states that a quarter of all positions in the formal political sphere must be held by women (listserve communication 20 March 2007 (accessed January 2008)).