The ‘Mathiang Anyoor’ is the popular name for military recruits who were mobilized in 2011–12 and later incorporated into South Sudan’s national army, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), at the beginning of the civil war in 2013. The Mathiang Anyoor were comprised primarily of Dinka male youth from the Aweil area of Northern Bahr el Ghazal and played a critical role in keeping the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) government of President Salva Kiir…

Prophets—those recognised as having been ‘seized’ by a divinity—have played an important role in the history of South Sudan, particularly that of the Nuer people. They were seen as being powerful political actors and, alongside chiefs, important intermediaries for the colonial authorities. However, the influence of the Nuer prophets goes much further than mobilizing or de-mobilizing the Nuer population to or from violence. In the UN Protection of Civilians Site (POCS) in Bentiu, where over…

During war, geographies of economic and political power are often recast by shifting patterns of trade and population movements. This can present an opportunity for local leaders to reshape legal and moral logics to attract trade and people to areas under their control. But these shifts can also create ambiguities and tensions that extend into times of peace. Wartime Trade and the Reshaping of Power in South Sudan explores these dynamics by looking at the…

South Sudan’s civil war has spread across the country, fuelling economic collapse and food shortages, and sending millions of residents fleeing across its borders. Although the former Northern Bahr el-Ghazal State has escaped the worst excesses of the current conflict—in part because it is a supposed heartland of South Sudan’s ruling politicalmilitary elites—it is also deeply affected by, and embedded in, the current war. Politics, power and chiefship in famine and war investigates how customary…

This paper was presented during the symposium East African Age Systems in Transition: Contemporary Political and Military Contexts held from 28 November – 2 December 1995 at the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka sponsored by the Taniguchi Foundation and organized by the Senri Foundation. It was included as Chapter 3 in Conflict, Age & Power in North East Africa edited by Eisei Kurimoto and myself and published in 1998 in the series Eastern African…

Curious to broaden your search to Sudan?
Try our sister facility CSF