Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-25wd4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T21:50:13.385Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

BORDERS ARE GALAXIES: INTERPRETING CONTESTATIONS OVER LOCAL ADMINISTRATIVE BOUNDARIES IN SOUTH SUDAN

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2016

Zoe Cormack
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article explores conflicts over local administrative boundaries in South Sudan and what these reveal about relationships between pastoralist communities and the state. Drawing on research in the Gogrial region of South Sudan, it argues that conflicts over local boundaries are rooted in the existence of different border paradigms and in subsequent attempts to resolve, sometimes violently, competing moral claims on the landscape. It draws a contrast between a Dinka concept of the border as a point that is owned and the state's concept of the border as a neutral dividing line. These concepts are based on different cultural logics, but there has been a century of interpenetration as well as conflict between them. The state has tried to lay its lines over Dinka points and local people have sought to tap the power of the state by claiming authority at administrative boundaries. These complex processes of interpenetration show how rural populations negotiate with violent state power: both in the past and in the process of forming the new state of South Sudan. They also reveal how some pastoralist populations have played an active role in shaping the geography of the state.

Résumé

Cet article explore des conflits portant sur des frontières administratives locales au Sud-Soudan et ce qu’ils révèlent des relations entre les communautés pastorales et l’État. S’appuyant sur des recherches menées dans la région de Gogrial au Sud-Soudan, il soutient que les conflits portant sur les frontières locales trouvent leurs racines dans l’existence de différents paradigmes de frontières et les tentatives suivantes de résoudre, parfois violemment, les revendications morales concurrentes pour le paysage. Il établit un contraste entre un concept dinka de la frontière en tant que point appartenant à quelqu’un, et le concept de la frontière selon l’État en tant que ligne de démarcation neutre. Ces concepts reposent sur des logiques culturelles différentes, mais ils sont marqués par un siècle d’interpénétration et de conflit. L’État a tenté de poser ses lignes sur les points dinka, et la population locale a cherché à exploiter le pouvoir de l’État en revendiquant une autorité aux frontières administratives. Ces processus complexes d’interpénétration montrent comment les populations rurales négocient avec un pouvoir étatique violent : tant par le passé que dans le mécanisme de formation du nouvel État du Sud-Soudan. Ils révèlent également la manière dont certaines populations pastorales ont joué un rôle actif dans le modelage de la géographie de l’État.

Type
Contesting Space and Selfhood
Information
Africa , Volume 86 , Issue 3 , August 2016 , pp. 504 - 527
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abbink, J. (1997) ‘The shrinking cultural and political space of East African pastoral societies’, Nordic Journal of African Studies 6 (1): 1–17.Google Scholar
Anderson, D. (2002) Eroding the Commons: the politics of ecology in Baringo, Kenya 1890–1968. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Beinart, W., Brown, K. and Gilfoyle, D. (2009) ‘Experts and expertise in colonial Africa reconsidered: science and the interpenetration of knowledge’, African Affairs 108 (432): 413–33.Google Scholar
Bender, B. (1999) ‘Subverting the Western gaze: mapping alternative worlds’ in Ucko, P. J. and Layton, R. (eds) The Archaeology and Anthropology of Landscape: shaping your landscape. New York NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Brockington, D. (2002) Fortress Conservation: the preservation of the Mkomazi Game Reserve, Tanzania. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Burton, J. (1988) ‘When the winds blow north: a note on small towns and social transformation in the Nilotic Sudan’, African Studies Review 31 (3): 49–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Catley, A., Lind, J. and Scoones, I. (eds) (2013) Pastoralism and Development in Africa: dynamic change at the margins. London: Routledge and Earthscan.Google Scholar
Collins, R. O. (1983) Shadows in the Grass: Britain in the Southern Sudan, 1918–1956. New Haven CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Das, V. and Poole, D. (2004) Anthropology in the Margins of the State. Santa Fe NM: School of American Research Press.Google Scholar
Deng, F. M. (1978) Africans of Two Worlds: the Dinka in the Afro-Arab Sudan. New Haven CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (1969) The Nuer: a description of the modes of livelihoods and political institutions of a Nilotic people. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fratkin, E. (1997) ‘Pastoralism: governance and development issues’, Annual Review of Anthropology 26: 235–61.Google Scholar
Gamaledin, M. (1993) ‘The decline of Afar pastoralism’ in Markakis, J. (ed.) Conflict and the Decline of Pastoralism in the Horn of Africa. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
GoSS (2009a) The Local Government Act. Juba: Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS).Google Scholar
GoSS (2009b) Southern Sudan: overview of states and counties. Juba: Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) and Southern Sudan Centre for Statistics and Evaluation.Google Scholar
Greiner, C. (2013) ‘Guns, land and votes: cattle rustling and the politics of boundary (re)making in Northern Kenya’, African Affairs 112 (447): 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harragin, S. and Chol, C. C. (1998) The Southern Sudan Vulnerability Study. Nairobi: Save the Children (UK).Google Scholar
Herbst, J. (2000) States and Power in Africa: comparative lessons in authority and control. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Howell, P., Lock, M. and Cobb, S. (1988) The Jonglei Canal: impact and opportunity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hughes, L. (2006) Moving the Maasai: a colonial misadventure. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Hutchinson, S. (1996) Nuer Dilemmas: coping with money, war and the state. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Ingold, T. (2007) Lines: a brief history. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Johnson, D. H. (1982) ‘Tribal boundaries and border wars: Nuer–Dinka relations in the Sobat and Zaraf Valleys, c.1860–1976’, Journal of African History 23 (4): 183–203.Google Scholar
Johnson, D. H. (1998) ‘The Sudan People's Liberation Army and the problem of factionalism’ in Clapham, C. (ed.) African Guerrillas. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Johnson, D. H. (2011) The Root Causes of Sudan's Civil Wars: peace or truce. Woodbridge: James Currey.Google Scholar
Leonardi, C. (2013) Dealing with Government in South Sudan: histories of chiefship, community and state. Woodbridge: James Currey.Google Scholar
Lienhardt, G. (1958) ‘The Western Dinka’ in Middleton, J. and Tait, D. (eds) Tribes without Rulers: studies in African segmentary systems. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lienhardt, G. (1961) Divinity and Experience: the religion of the Dinka. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Lienhardt, G. (1982) ‘The Sudan: aspects of the south government among some of the Nilotic peoples, 1947–1952’, Bulletin (British Society of Middle Eastern Studies) 9 (1): 22–34.Google Scholar
Luedke, A. (2013) ‘Increasing conflict over internal boundaries in South Sudan’, A Periodic Newsletter from the South Sudan Law Society 1: 6.Google Scholar
Makec, J. W. (1988) The Customary Law of the Dinka People of Sudan: in comparison with aspects of Western and Islamic laws. London: Afroworld Publishing.Google Scholar
Mamdani, M. (1996) Citizen and Subject: contemporary Africa and the legacy of late colonialism. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Mazarire, G. C. (2013) ‘The Gadzingo: towards a Karanga expansion matrix in 18th and 19th century southern Zimbabwe’, Critical African Studies 5 (1): 4–16.Google Scholar
Middleton, J. and Tait, D. (eds) (1970) Tribes without Rulers: studies in African segmentary systems. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Moritz, M. (2005) ‘FulBe pastoralists and the neo-patrimonial state in the Chad Basin’, Geography Research Journal 25: 83–104.Google Scholar
Norris, M. W. (1983) ‘Local government and decentralisation in the Sudan’, Public Administration and Development 3: 209–22.Google Scholar
Nyaba, P. A. (2011) ‘The challenges of state and nation building in South Sudan’ in State Building and Development in South Sudan. Nairobi: Africa Research and Resource Forum.Google Scholar
Ranger, T. (1993) ‘The invention of tradition revisited: the case of Africa’ in Ranger, T. and Vaughan, O. (eds) Legitimacy and the State in Twentieth Century Africa. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Reno, W. (2011) Warfare in Independent Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reyna, S. (1990) Wars without End: the political economy of a precolonial African state. Hanover NH and London: University Press of New England.Google Scholar
Rolandsen, Ø. (2005) Guerrilla Government: political changes in the southern Sudan during the 1990s. Leiden: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.Google Scholar
Rolandsen, Ø. (2009) Land, Security and Peace Building in Southern Sudan. Oslo: International Peace Research Institute.Google Scholar
Ryle, J. and Errington, S. (1982) The Dinka: warriors of the White Nile. Amsterdam: Time Life Books.Google Scholar
Santschi, M. (2008) ‘Counting “New Sudan”’, African Affairs 107 (429): 631–40.Google Scholar
Santschi, M. (2013) ‘Encountering and “capturing” Hakuma: negotiating statehood and authority in Northern Bahr-El-Ghazal State, South Sudan.’ PhD thesis, University of Bern.Google Scholar
Schlee, G. (2010) Territorialising Ethnicity: the political ecology of pastoralism in northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia. Halle: Max-Planck Institute.Google Scholar
Schlee, G. and Shongolo, A. A. (2011) Pastoralism and Politics in Northern Kenyan and Southern Ethiopia. Woodbridge: James Currey.Google Scholar
Schomerus, M. and Allen, T. (2010) Southern Sudan at Odds with Itself: dynamics of conflict and predicaments of peace. London: London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).Google Scholar
Seligman, C. G. and Seligman, B. Z. (1932) Pagan Tribes of the Nilotic Sudan. London: Routledge & Sons.Google Scholar
Sharma, A. and Gupta, A. (eds) (2006) The Anthropology of the State: a reader. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Spear, T. (2003) ‘Neo-traditionalism and limits of invention in British colonial Africa’, Journal of African History 44 (1): 3–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tambiah, S. (1977) ‘The galactic polity: the structure of traditional kingdoms in Southeast Asia’, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 293: 69–97.Google Scholar
Thomas, E. (2010) The Kafia Kingi Enclave: people, politics and history in the north–south boundary zone of western Sudan. London: Rift Valley Institute.Google Scholar
Thomas, E. (2015) South Sudan: a slow liberation. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Titherington, G. W. (1927) ‘The Raik Dinka of the Bahr El Ghazal Province’, Sudan Notes and Records 10: 159–209.Google Scholar
Todisco, C. (2015) Real but Fragile: the Greater Pibor administrative area. Geneva: Small Arms Survey.Google Scholar
Turner, M. (1999) ‘The role of social networks, indefinite boundaries and political bargaining in maintaining the ecological and economic resilience of the transhumance systems of Sudano-Sahelian West Africa’ in Niamir-Fuller, M. (ed.) Managing Mobility in African Rangelands: the legitimization of transhumance. London: Intermediate Technology Publications.Google Scholar
Tuttle, B. (2013) ‘Life is prickly: narrating history, belonging, and common place in Bor, South Sudan’. PhD thesis, Temple University.Google Scholar
Umbadda, S. (2014) ‘Agricultural investment through land grabbing in Sudan’ in Gertel, J., Rottenburg, R. and Calkins, S. (eds) Disrupting Territories: land, commodification and conflict in Sudan. Woodbridge: James Currey.Google Scholar
UNOCHA (2008) Payams of Southern Sudan. Juba: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA).Google Scholar
Waller, R. (2004) ‘“Clean” and “dirty”: cattle disease and control policy in colonial Kenya’, Journal of African History 45 (1): 45–80.Google Scholar
Watson, E. (2010) ‘A hardening of lines: landscape, religion and identity in northern Kenya’, Journal of Eastern African Studies 4 (2): 201–20.Google Scholar
Willis, J. (2003) ‘Violence, authority, and the state in the Nuba mountains of condominium Sudan’, Historical Journal 46 (1): 89–114.Google Scholar