The article offers a nuanced account of how identities are negotiated and contested in South Sudan, by focusing on how Murle and ŋalam identities were deployed in different ways in different places in overlapping periods during a time of armed conflict. The article focuses on the 2012-2014 period of war between the South Sudanese government and a largely Murle rebellion. Read more here

There is a demonstrated relationship between early marriage and education. Female youth who are out of school are more likely to marry, and those youth who marry while in school, are more likely to drop out. By analyzing the stories of 140 female youth displaced by conflict in South Sudan and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), we examine the role of marital status and motherhood on schooling experience and educational interruption, attainment, and aspirations….

This interactive report explores how flooding intersects with displacement and violence in South Sudan. Using the case of Jonglei state, the report finds that the recurrent flooding have displaced hundreds of thousands of Jonglei’s population to Equatoria region, and this has sparked competition and conflict over resources, especially between migrating herders and the host communities. Finally, it outlines recommendations on how aid agencies and donors can address these flood-induced tensions, including a broader conflict in…

Around the world, forced displacement is on the rise. Growing numbers are affected by disasters and, instead of safe, controlled evacuation and where necessary re-settlement, the average length of displacement is 20 years. Further, one in four displaced persons end up in urban informal settlements, often on the edge of cities. It is also critical that factors of the reality are understood to ensure durable solutions are achieved for displaced communities around the world. Research…

Since the Second Sudanese Civil War in 1983, South Sudan has seen significant levels of displacement driven by conflict, resource stress, climate shocks, and disease. Movement, already an endemic feature of life in South Sudan, has enabled many South Sudanese households or household members to escape or mitigate years of shocks, but those deciding to move have often faced competing needs, physical risks, and constraints on movement. In order to better understand how both displacement…

Over the past four decades, most South Sudanese people have begun buying staple foods rather than eating self-grown grains and tubers. This is part of a wider move towards markets, closely connected to South Sudan’s first encounters with modernity in the nineteenth century, as well as the conflicts and mass displacements of the past fifty years. This move has deeply affected food systems, diminishing the availability of indigenous grains and impoverishing many people’s diets. South…

Displaced Tastes is a research project run by the Rift Valley Institute in partnership with the Catholic University of South Sudan under the X-Border Local Research Network. The project examines the changing tastes for food in South Sudan in the context of the country’s economic transition and place in the regional, cross-border economy of grain. In this piece, Elizabeth Nyibol describes the lifestory of her aunt, Mary Ajok Wetkwuot, who throughout her life has demonstrated…

This article explores how conflict-induced displacement influences agricultural innovation processes and systems, and its implications after the return home or permanent resettlement of smallholder farmers. Results show that high rates of agricultural innovation occurred during displacement in the Sudanese Civil War (1983-2005), many of which were maintained afterwards. Respondents cited the need for adaptation to new social and physical circumstances, changed gender roles, and enhanced inter-household communication as contributing to increased opportunities for knowledge exchange,…

A year after South Sudan signed a peace agreement to end the country’s devastating civil war, a staggering one-third of its population is still displaced. Few feel safe enough to return home, and the situation remains dire. Little of the peace agreement has been implemented even as a deadline looms to form a transitional government in the next six weeks by November 12. Failure to address key issues, including relocation and disarmament of soldiers and…

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