More than 2 million Southerners have returned to South Sudan since 2005, following the end of the North–South civil war. Building on research conducted in South Sudan, as well as Egypt and northern Uganda, Ensor examines the process of reintegration of refugees and internally displaced persons returning to South Sudan since the signing of the 2005 Peace Agreement. The study focuses on the role played by displaced youth as they find themselves differentially situated vis-à-vis…

The subject of youth and their role in violent conflict continues to shape African social science research; hence the need to initiate sustainable preventive measures as youth violence permeates every policy discussion in conflict and post-conflict contexts. The research has focused primarily on the role of youth either as perpetrators or as victims of violence. Several projects have linked increased youth engagement in violence to growing levels of illiteracy, rising unemployment and poverty. These neo-classical…

This is one in a series of United States Institute of Peace special reports on state-building in the Republic of South Sudan following its creation on July 9, 2011. Each report analyzes an aspect of the state-building challenge and recommends priorities for the government of South Sudan. This report assesses the situation, priorities, and expectations of South Sudan’s massive youth population in the context of building the new nation. Drawing from field interviews with youth,…

This article draw attention to the young Nuer generation during the second phase of the civil war in Sudan (1983 – 2005) and their reinvention of themselves in religious movements as a response to the post-1991 shattering of southern political and military unity. Link to publication

This article examines a structural opposition between the sphere of military/government (the ‘hakuma’) and the sphere of ‘home’. It argues that to be a ‘youth’ in Southern Sudan means to inhabit the tensions of the space between these spheres. While attempting to resist capture by either sphere, youth have used their recruitment by the military to invest in their home or family sphere. Their aspiration to ‘responsibility’ illustrates not generational rebellion, but the moral continuity…

This book chapter (2005) considers the position of youth and children in the context of the on-going war in Sudan, focusing in particular on the war-provoked and growing contradiction between norms held by the Dinka about the importance of children and childbearing and what young people went through during the second round of the north-south conflict. Link to publication

This article (2003) summarizes the effects of the Civil War on the Sudanese society, in general, and on youth and children, in particular. Download

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