Points of order? Local government meetings as negotiation tables in South Sudanese history

Abstract

This paper explores the long-term, local-level history of state formation in South Sudan over the past century, by focusing on local government meetings. The resilience of local state institutions and practices has been overlooked in recent state-building agendas and by scholars critical of authoritarian government and failed decentralization in South Sudan's history. But this paper argues that meetings of local government officials and chiefs have long been significant institutions for negotiating the state and performing its authority. Yet they were also risky and unpredictable events for state officials, who at times struggled to control the critical and unruly talk of the participants. These officials were made vulnerable by the very logic and performance of the meeting as a binary dialogue between ‘state’ and ‘society’, constituting a boundary which was otherwise blurred or non-existent among the local elites who recognized each other as legitimate negotiators in meetings. The performance of this dichotomy contributed to the idea of the state as an entity standing separate from society, to which people might appeal against the failings and corruptions of local government, and with which a contractual relationship was continually being negotiated. The performative aspect of these meetings should not simply be dismissed then as evidence of their impotence or control by the state, but rather as a vital means by which the state has come to be imagined and negotiated at the most immediate local levels of government.

Keywords:

• negotiation table
• negotiation arena
• meetings
• South Sudan
• state formation

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Katrin Seidel and Timm Sureau very much for organising the original conference ‘Emerging South Sudan: Negotiating Statehood’ at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in 2013 and for their patient and constructive editing of this paper and collection; and the conference participants for their comments on an early version of the paper, particularly Richard Rottenburg. Thanks also to Chris Vaughan, Martina Santschi, Zoe Cormack and Justin Willis for their advice and suggestions on the paper, as well as to the anonymous JEAS reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. PASS, “Traditional Leaders Conference.”

2. The CoTALs were prescribed in the Government of Southern Sudan's Local Government Act 2009, Sec. 119–121.

3. The typical view was reflected by International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding, The International Dialogue, 8: “In 2005 there were no Southern Sudanese institutions in place with the capacity to tackle these challenges. Government and administration had to be built from scratch.”

4. PASS, “Traditional Leaders Conference.”

5. Leonardi, Dealing with Government.

6. Rasanayagam et al., “Introduction”, 20; Vaughan, “Negotiating the State.”

7. Vaughan, “Reinventing the Wheel”, Willis, “Tribal Gatherings.”

8. Howell, “Councils and Councillors.”

9. Mamdani, Citizen and Subject.

10. Howell, “Political Leadership”, 53.

11. Rolandsen, Guerrilla Government.

12. Traditional Authority was formally recognised in the Interim Constitution (2005) Art. 173(i), 174–75 and in the Transitional Constitution of the Republic of South Sudan (2011), Art.166 (6i) 167f.

13. Prah, Unity in Diversity.

14. Howell, “Introduction”, 1.

15. Lacker, International State-building.

16. Hagmann and Péclard, “Negotiating Statehood”, 551.

17. Ibid., 545.

18. See Mitchell, “The Limits.”

19. Haugerud, The Culture, 72.

20. Vinco, “First Christian”, 101; Werne, Expedition, 67.

21. Buxton, Chiefs and Strangers, 79.

22. Baker, Ismailia, 255–62.

23. The Bari headmen sought and failed to make such a contract with Baker; two men who became his interpreters were more successful: ibid., 259, 269.

24. Gray, A History, 149–50.

25. Leonardi, Dealing with Government.

26. Brock, A/Governor, to Civil Secretary, 7 October 1924, National Records Office, Khartoum (hereafter NRO) Mongalla Province (MP) 1/1/2. Chiefs' courts were given formal recognition in the Chiefs' Courts Ordinance (1931).

27. Governor Nalder to DCs and Civil Secretary, “The future of Native Administration in Mongalla.” 5 February 1935, NRO Civsec 1/39/105.

28. Equatoria Province Monthly Diary, November 1949, NRO Dakhlia 57/5/13.

29. Equatoria Province Monthly Diaries, June, July and September 1949, NRO Dakhlia 57/5/13; June and October 1951, NRO Dakhlia 57/9/24; and February, April, July and September 1952, NRO Civsec2 30/3/6; Howell, “Political Leadership”, 115.

30. Rolandsen and Leonardi, “Discourses of Violence.”

31. Minutes of a meeting of DC and chiefs, Yei, 15 November 1955, recorded by William Deng Nhial, South Sudan National Archives, Juba (SSNA) Equatoria Province (EP) 1.A.16.

32. Minutes of Tembura Chiefs' Meeting, Tembura, 10 November 1955, by Ahmed Hassan, DC Zande, SSNA EP 1.A.16.

33. Juba Rural Council Monthly Diary for January 1957, SSNA EP 100.B.4-7.

34. Leonardi et al., “Report on Traditional Authority”, 11.

35. Interview with Dinka male elder and former chiefs' court member, Wau, November 27, 2009; interview with Dinka male elder and mechanic, Rumbek, November 18, 2006.

36. Interview with male Kakwa headman, near Yei, October 4, 2005.

37. Hagmann and Péclard, “Negotiating Statehood.”

38. Lakes District Monthly Reports, February-March 1937, SSNA EP 57.D.10.

39. Governor Owen, “Occupation of the Lado Enclave”, May–-June 1910, NRO MP 1/8/51.

40. HB Bullen, “Personal diary of visit to southern Sudan, May-August 1947”, Sudan Archive Durham (SAD) 864/2/16.

41. Haugerud, The Culture, 71.

42. Ibid., 65.

43. Cf. ibid., 69.

44. Johnson, “Ngundeng”, 121.

45. Political Meeting held at Thiet on 10 April 1958, NRO Upper Nile Province (UNP) 1/20/168.

46. Minutes of the meeting between Gok and Agar sections on August 20, 1984, Rumbek, Bahr el Ghazal Province Archive, Wau, Lakes Province 66.B.1.

47. Cf. Haugerud, The Culture, 73.

48. Moru District Annual Report 1939, NRO EP 2/26/94.

49. Minutes of Tribal Gathering, Ibba, February 19, 1957, by J. G. Warrabeck for DC Moru, SSNA EP 1.A.16. See also Rolandsen and Leonardi, “Discourses of Violence”.

50. Governor Equatoria's speech to meeting of all chiefs of Zande District, February 18, 1957, SSNA EP 1.A.16.

51. Political Meeting held at Thiet on 10 April 1958; also Sub-Mamur's Office, report on Ezbon Mundiri's political meeting of Federalist Party in Amadi on 4 January 1958, both NRO UNP 1/20/168. Cf. Haugerud, The Culture, 66.

52. Amato Gore Andrea, Executive Officer Juba People's Rural Council, Trek Journal 26-27 February 1974, SSNA EP 66.B.1.2.

53. Lakes District Handbook, 1940, SSNA EP 1.G.2; Rumbek District Monthly Report, Oct 1937, SSNA EP 57.D.10; Equatoria Province Monthly Diary December 1947, NRO Dakhlia 57/2/5; “Extract from proceedings of Juba District Chiefs Meeting, February 1–4, 1950”, NRO EP 2/9/32.

54. Zande chiefs' meetings, 1950s, SSNA EP 1.A.16.

55. Lakes District Monthly Report January 1955, SSNA UNP Bor District 57.B.2.

56. Minutes of the Head Chiefs' Conference held in the office of the Inspector Local Government Juba District, 6-7 September 1977, by Amato Gore Andrea, SSNA EP 66.B.1.2.

57. Haugerud, The Culture, 99.

58. “Amadi District Notes on Chiefs Courts” (1924) NRO MP 1.1.2.

59. Minutes of the meeting between Gok and Agar sections on 20 August 1984, Rumbek; Minutes of the meeting of Commissioner Lakes Province with Aliamtoc Chiefs on 3 August 1984, both in Bahr el Ghazal Province Archive, Wau, Lakes Province 66.B.1.

60. PASS, “Traditional Leaders Conference.”

61. Santschi, “Traditional Leaders.”

62. Ibid.

63. Interview with female Kakwa elder, near Yei, October 26, 2005.

64. Haugerud, The Culture.

65. Interview with male Kakwa church preacher, Yei, September 19, 2005.

66. Mitchell, “The Limits”, 94.