Written by Naomi Pendle
Wartime Trade and the Reshaping of Power in South Sudan: Learning from the Market of Mayen Rual
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…
Read MoreThe Roots of Restraint in War
The Roots of Restraint in War is an update of the 2004 Roots of Behaviour in War. Based on two years of research collaboration between the ICRC and six distinguished scholars, the report identifies sources of influence on various types of armed forces and armed groups, ranging from those with a highly decentralized structure to…
Read MoreFamine, Access and Conflict Sensitivity: What opportunities do livestock offer in South Sudan?
This report that discusses opportunities provided by livestock in South Sudan referring to famine, access and conflict sensitivity is based on research conducted by Naomi Pendle and the Conflict Sensitivity Resource Facility (CSRF) in 2017. The research was funded by the UK, Swiss, and Canadian Donor Missions in South Sudan.
Read MoreCommunity Security and Justice under United Nations Governance: Lessons from Chiefs’ Courts in South Sudan’s Protection of Civilians Sites
This article examines the public authority of chiefs’ courts within the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) Protection of Civilians Sites (PoCs). After December 2013, UNMISS peacekeepers opened the gates of their bases to around 200,000 civilians fleeing war. This unintentionally created a legal and political anomaly. Over time, conflicts and crimes rose within…
Read More“The dead are just to drink from”: recycling ideas of revenge amongst the western Dinka, South Sudan
Governments in South Sudan have long built their authority on their ability to fashion changing regimes of revenge and compensation, war and peace. Governments’ capture of these regimes has resulted in the secularisation of compensation despite the ongoing spiritual consequences of lethal violence. This article explores these issues by focusing on the western Dinka of…
Read MoreTalk of Truth, Reconciliation and Justice in South Sudan
LSE’s Naomi Pendle paints an informative and insightful portrait of the challenges of reconciliation in South Sudan. Download
Read MoreContesting the Militarization of the Places Where They Met: the Landscapes of the Western Nuer and Dinka (South Sudan)
Decades of militarized, violent conflict and elite wealth acquisition have created a common rupture in shared landscapes between communities of the western Dinka and Nuer (South Sudan). Through the remaking of these landscapes, governments and their wars have indirectly reshaped political identities and relationships. Networks of complex relationships have used this space for migration, marriage,…
Read MoreCustomary Protection? Chiefs’ courts as public authority in UN Protection of Civilian sites in South Sudan
This paper examines the initiatives of people living in PoC sites – functionally, internally displaced people (IDPs) – to invigorate their own authority structures and security and justice mechanisms. In particular, we focus upon the practices of customary chiefs’ courts. Download
Read MoreViolence, Legitimacy, and Prophecy: Nuer Struggles with Uncertainty in South Sudan
Contemporary South Sudanese Nuer prophets play powerful roles in interpreting the moral limits of lethal violence and weighing the legitimacy claims of rival government leaders. Their activities remain largely invisible to external observers investigating the making and unmaking of fragile states. Focusing on South Sudan’s tumultuous 2005–14 period, this article reveals these hidden dynamics through analysis…
Read More“They Are Now Community Police”: Negotiating the Boundaries and Nature of the Government in South Sudan through the Identity of Militarised Cattle-keepers
Armed, cattle-herding men in Africa are often assumed to be at a relational and spatial distance from the ‘legitimate’ armed forces of the government. The vision constructed of the South Sudanese government in 2005 by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement removed legitimacy from non-government armed groups including localised, armed, defence forces that protected communities and cattle.…
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