Land, political subjectivity and conflict in post-CPA Southern Sudan

Abstract

While South Sudan's independence formally marks the beginning of a new era, the recent relapse into violence raises important questions about the continuous impact of the post-colonial trajectories through which the country has become defined. This article discusses such impact by asking about the kind of political subjectivity which has emerged in post-Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) South Sudan, by exploring the tri-partite relationship between political subjectivity, government and land. Through a reconstruction of major reform processes in local and land governance, the article demonstrates that questions of political subjectivity and land remained closely interlinked in post-CPA South Sudan. Moreover, they have also proven particularly relevant the country's post-war development agenda, as well as for the continued conflicts which characterize South Sudan's first years of independence. The article explores how communal land tenure limited the state's and private actors' access to land, as well as the government's authority over economic development. Changes in land practice since the CPA however have shaped a political subject, which could be shepherded towards socio-economic transformation through a distinctly post-colonial apparatus of governance. Moreover, the specific post-colonial traits of subjectivity also provided resources on which resistance to the state could be mobilized, and this affected the dynamics of conflict in post-CPA South Sudan.

Keywords:

• subjectivity
• South Sudan
• land governance
• land reform
• local government
• liberalization
• conflict
• development
• state building
• ethnicity

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Dr Devon Curtis and Dr Tarak Barkawi for their continuous guidance during the research for this article. Many thanks also to Timm Sureau, Dr Katrin Seidel and the participants of the Max-Planck Workshop on “Emerging South Sudan: Negotiating Statehood”, Halle, 23–24 September 2013, for their constructive comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding

The research for this contribution benefited from the generous support through the Heinrich-Böll Foundation, the Cambridge Political Economy Society Trust, the UAC of Nigeria Trust, the University of Cambridge Smuts Memorial Fund and St. Edmund's College Cambridge.

ORCID

Andreas T. Hirblinger http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1193-1903

Notes

1. This article covers the period before and after South Sudan's independence. I will therefore refer to either to the Region of Southern Sudan or the Republic of South Sudan depending on the time period, as well as to southern Sudan where reference is mainly made to territory.

2. Mayardit, “Speech on the Occasion.”

3. Deng, Power of Creative Reasoning; Deng, New Sudan in the Making; Akol, Southern Sudan.

4. See note 2 above.

5. See the title of the movement's first National Convention, SPLM, A Major Watershed.

6. References to the country as “virgin” or “untouched” land have been common in interviews with government officials. Author's interviews with Alfred Ladogore, Juba, November 21, 2012; Robert Ladu Luki, Juba, November 22, 2012; and Michael Makuei, Juba, February 21, 2013.

7. “Senior SPLM Colleagues give Kiir Ultimatum over Party Crisis.” Sudan Tribune, December 6, 2013. http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?iframe&page=imprimable&id_article=49087.

8. Lund and Boone, “Land Politics in Africa”.

9. Ibid., 2.

10. The article has emerged in the course of a larger doctoral research project on the relationship between local government and conflict in post-CPA Southern Sudan. It is based on participatory observation and interviews conducted during three field trips to Juba, Bor and Lainya Counties in South Sudan (October–December 2012, February–March 2013 and November–December 2013), as well as the analysis of archival documents, many of which were obtained from the Local Government Board Library in Juba.

11. Mbembe, On the Postcolony, 9.

12. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Empire, Global Coloniality and African Subjectivity.

13. Escobar, Encountering Development; Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine.

14. Rose and Miller, “Political Power.”

15. Foucault understood as a dispositive a “thoroughly heterogeneous ensemble” which consists of “the said as much as the unsaid”, such as “discourses, institutions, [ … ], regulatory decisions, laws, administrative measures, and scientific statements, philosophical, moral and philanthropic propositions”, Foucault, “Confession of the Flesh,” 194; for a discussion see Agamben, What Is an Apparatus; and Bonditti, “Act Different.”

16. Foucault, “The Subject and Power,” 790.

17. Bayart, State in Africa; Dean, Governing Societies.

18. Death, “Governmentality”; Joseph, “Limits of Governmentality.”

19. Mamdani, Citizen and Subject.

20. Ibid., 18.

21. Rolandsen, Guerrilla Government, 61–64.

22. CRS, PACT, and UNDP, “Local Government and County Recovery,” 2.

23. Author's interview with George Nyombe, Juba, February 27, 2013.

24. Svensson, “Decentralization,” 4.

25. Ibid.

26. Leonardi and Jalil, “Traditional Authority.”

27. Author's interviews with Diing Akol Diing, February 23, 2013; and Daniel Awet Akot, Juba, February 27, 2013.

28. Author's interview with Virginia Gitanda, Juba, November 21, 2012.

29. Ibid.

30. Seidel, “Negotiating South Sudanese ‘Nationality’.”

31. Leonardi et al., Report on Traditional Authority, 9.

32. Ibid.

33. See note 22 above, 11.

34. Government of Southern Sudan, Local Government Act, 2009, Section 19.

35. GOSS, World Bank, and Nhiem, Strategic Options Paper, 43.

36. Author's interview with Makuei, 2013.

37. Johnson, Root Causes, 130.

38. Johnson, “Decolonising the Borders”; Leonardi, “Paying ‘Buckets of Blood’ for the Land”.

39. The term “community” itself has usually remained ill-defined. This ambiguity sits well with the situated, instrumental uses to which the term has been put to.

40. Author's interview with Makuei, 2013.

41. Deng and Mittal, Understanding Land Investment Deals; Deng, New Frontier.

42. United Nations Security Council, “Report of the Secretary-General,” 3.

43. Author's interviews with Manase, Suba Samuel, Juba, February 11, 2013; Lakujii, Alfred, February 26, 2012.

44. Author's interviews with Luki, 2012; Manase, 2013; and Staff Member, National Non-Governmental Organisation, February 5, 2012, Staff Member, National Non-Governmental Organisation, November 7, 2012, and Staff Member, International Non-Governmental Organisation, November 7, 2012.

45. Authors’ interview with Daramolo, Denis, Juba, February 08, 2013.

46. See note 42 above, 4.

47. Badiey, “Strategic Instrumentalisation,” 60; see also Boone, “Property and Constitutional Order”.

48. Joint Assessment Mission, “Volume I”, 43.

49. Author's interviews with Lual Deng, Juba, November 6, 2013 and Lokulenge Lole, Juba, December 3, 2013.

50. De Wit, “Land Policy Development,” 12.

51. Unknown Author , “Customary Land Tenure”.

52. Author's interview with Makuei, 2013.

53. See note 50 above.

54. Government of Southern Sudan, Transitional Constitution, 169(1).

55. Author's interview with Luki, 2012.

56. Ibid.

57. Ibid.

58. See note 51 above, 2.

59. Ibid., 5.

60. Government of Southern Sudan, Land Act, 2009, Section 61.

61. Ibid., Section 64.

62. Ibid., Section 63.

63. Southern Sudan Land Commission and Government of Southern Sudan, Draft Land Policy. The finalisation of the policy however stalled in the years after.

64. Author's interview with Staff Member, International Non-Governmental Organisation, 2012.

65. Author's interview with Christopher Taban, Juba November 15, 2012.

66. Author's interview with Staff Member, International Non-Governmental Organisation, 2012.

67. Author's interview with Executive Member of the SSCLA, Juba, November 8, 2012.

68. Deng, New Frontier.

69. Author's interview with Taban, 2012.

70. Ibid.

71. Lawry, Steven and Deng, Biong, “Developing Land Policy”.

72. Author's interview with Taban, 2012.

73. Author's interview with Luki, 2012.

74. Author's interview with Diing, 2013.

75. Author's interview with Arop Leek Deng, Bor, February 23, 2013.

76. Author's interviews with Luki, 2012; Marc Dawson, Juba, November 13, 2012; Staff Member, International Non-Governmental Organisation, 2012.

77. Author's interview with Makuei, 2013.

78. Author's interview with Taban, 2012.

79. Author's interview with Dawson, 2013.

80. Author's interview with Nyombe, 2013.

81. Author's interview with Albert Pitiya Redentore, Juba, February 26, 2013.

82. Author's interview with Arop Leek Deng, Bor, February 23, 2013.

83. Ibid.

84. Ibid.

85. Interview with Group of Administrative Chiefs from Payam and Boma levels, Bor County (conducted jointly with members of Conflict Dynamics International), Bor, December 6, 2013.

86. Author's interview with Huda Micha Laila Dowdi, Juba, February 21, 2013.

87. Authors's interview with International Consultant, Juba, November 29, 2012. The idea in this specific case was to give land rights to women.

88. Njoh, Planning Power.

89. Author's interview with Ladu Gore, 2013.

90. Ibid.

91. Ibid. While other interview partners made a semantic difference between “people” and “community” Ladugore did not associate “people” with a vision of universal citizenship, but referred for example to the “Bari people” in communal terms.

92. Ladu Gore first joined Machar's Nasir faction in 1993, but shortly after left it to establish his own rebel group, the Southern Sudan Patriotic Movement (SSPM), see “Seven Sudanese Rebel Commanders Split from SPLA.” Agence France Presse, May 5, 1993.

93. Author's interview with Makuei, 2013.

94. Ladu Gore, “South Sudan Faltering Peace Talks.”

95. Ibid.