This article explores specific oral histories and chiefship debates in the aftermath of the SPLA war in two Southern Sudanese chiefdoms. It argues that these local histories reveal much about the historical relationship between state and society – and in particular the mediation with external violence – which is central to understanding the legitimacy of local authority. Link to publication
Entries by Cherry Leonardi
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…