Displacement in Post-War Southern Sudan: Survival and Accumulation within Urban Perimeters

Abstract

This paper is about Southern Sudanese IDPs and refugees who, after the 2005 ComprehensivePeace Agreement, chose not to return to their areas of origin, but instead to resettle elsewhere. Rather than exploring the push and pull factors of this decision, this paper documents the ways in which they have organised their lives in their places of post-war resettlement. More particularly, it explores their selfemployment strategies in an institutional context characterised by weak state regulation and high reliance on self-governance institutions, especially social networks. One observation in particular intrigued us: the fact that some displaced were more successful than others in making a living in their places of resettlement. Consequently, uncovering why some individuals and groups were wealthier than others inspired and structured the research. In order to understand the difference between "networks of survival" and "networks of accumulation" -a twin phrase we borrowed from Meagher (2006) -it was imperative to comprehend the economy as a political terrain and to explore the structural position of groups. To this end it was necessary to complement a social capital perspective with a political economy approach.

Land conflict and informal settlements in Juba, South Sudan

“…In her study, Walreat (2011) suggests that what is ultimately at stake in competition for urban land is a process of class formation. The findings presented here lend weight to this view.…”

“…Instead, she suggests, land conflicts reflect attempts by individuals and communities to retain control over local resources. In research on access to land and livelihoods in two towns in Eastern Equatoria, Walreat (2011) suggests that, although narratives of Dinka versus Equatorians were prevalent amongst the towns’ inhabitants, competition over land was not in fact about Dinka versus Equatorians. Instead, underpinning land conflict was the varying ability of individuals to access resources, including land and financial capital, and the extent to which this was facilitated by military and/or political connections.…”

“…Instead, underpinning land conflict was the varying ability of individuals to access resources, including land and financial capital, and the extent to which this was facilitated by military and/or political connections. She argues that what was occurring was ‘ultimately a process of class formation, although veiled by the dominant discourse of ethnicity’ (Walreat, 2011: 8). In the case of Juba, Badiey (2014) builds on Leonardi’s analysis to argue that the identities of ‘Dinka’ and ‘Equatorian’, which ‘are so often employed as natural and opposed, are spurious categorisations’ (p. 9), suggesting that the land rights issue in Juba was not about ‘Equatorians’ and ‘Dinka’ but about the difference between newcomers and sons of the soil/autochthons and the rights of the latter (the Bari) to use traditional land allocation mechanisms.…”

Livelihoods, conflict and aid programming: is the evidence base good enough?

“…As Cramer (2010, p. 2) notes, 'the rapid growth of interest among development economists in the past twenty years or so in violent conflict and its aftermath in developing countries has made many advances but has devoted very little attention to labour markets'. As a result, with the exception of a small number of studies (Adam, 2008;Aysa-Lastra, 2011;Beall and Schutte, 2006;Calderón et al, 2011;Ibáñez and Moya, 2009;Walraet, 2011), we still know relatively little about how conflict affects labour markets and how these changes affect people's livelihoods. This can be partly accounted for by the complexity involved in understanding labour markets and by the challenges associated with making sense of their social and political characteristics.…”