This article is a case study of armed opposition factions in the Central Equatoria region within South Sudan’s current civil war. Based on research in South Sudan and northern Uganda during the spring of 2017, the study focuses on the internal organisation, recruitment and funding processes, and political ideas of these organisations, engaging with recent theories concerning governance and civilians in rebel-controlled territories. It argues that rebels and civilians are not separate analytical categories, and that the region’s new wartime orders are embedded in common local knowledge drawn from historical practice.