Abstract This article explores the links between African artefacts in European museum collections and the slave and ivory trade in Sudan in the nineteenth century. It examines how ‘ethnographic’ collections were acquired from southern Sudan and how this process was entangled with the expansion of predatory commerce. Presenting evidence from contemporary travel accounts, museum archives and from the examination of objects themselves, the author argues that the nineteenth-century trade in artefacts from South Sudan was…
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CSRF Research Repository
The CSRF Research Repository aims to support greater contextual knowledge for policy makers, programme managers, and implementers by providing a searchable repository of research, analysis, and resources, and providing periodic updates on new research and analysis.
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 the urban centres of South Sudan, people increasingly depend on markets to buy grains imported from South Sudan’s neighbours—particularly…
Trade and markets in weak states are often discussed in relation with violence, security and peace-building. A case in point are marketplaces in the Sudan-South Sudan borderlands where communities separated by insecurity and hostility meet, not only to trade but also to negotiate and exchange information. This does not imply that establishment of such markets automatically results in peace and stability. Based on new empirical research on the Amieth market in Abyei – an area…
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 is a fragile country. South Sudan is one of the most food insecure countries in the world. Conflict and long standing economic and social changes are disrupting agricultural production, markets, and community livelihoods, which are consequently increasing food insecurity and poverty rates in South Sudan. Though the current macro-economic crisis threatens to worsen food security even further, it also presents an opportunity to tap into South Sudan’s vast agricultural potential. Conflict sensitive efforts…
After the war broke out again in the border areas between the Sudans, a trading pattern known earlier as the “peace markets” reemerged. In contrast to previous attempts to use trade to reduce tensions, such markets are now banned by the government of Sudan with severe penalties for perpetrators. We studied this phenomenon using information obtained from within the war zones and found that, although the high profit from such trading is a key motive,…
This PhD thesis analyses how business activity and economic regulation in South(ern) Sudan was governed before and during the 2012 economic austerity period following the political decisiosn to shut down all oil production. The analyses focuses on the modalities of real economic governance, warranting an empirically-grounded ethnographic view of governance from the perspective of everyday practices and interactions between and within groups of economic and state actors. Download
International Alert’s report, Trading with neighbours, examines the realities of trade relations between business communities in Uganda and South Sudan. The report provides targeted recommendations to business and traders associations, civil society, the governments of Uganda and South Sudan, financial institutions and the media aimed at remedying these adverse trade issues and practices, in an effort to create a more conducive trading atmosphere for cross-border business communities in the region. Download
The study assessed the competitiveness of the South Sudanese economy in terms of export performance. The goal is to provide an analytical foundation for the development of policy recommendations with a view to enhancing the export competitiveness of the country and the overall regional benefit of trade. It is envisaged that as the country develops, the structure of its trade with neighbouring countries will change in a manner that will benefit the whole region. The…
Analyzes the flow of commodities in the marketing system of South Sudan and describes the constraints faced by the marketing system. The specific objectives are to describe the marketing system in South Sudan in terms of its inter and intra-regional coordination, structure and flows in the structure, market levels and links among the levels, and the conduct of marketing functions. Download
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