Abstract

Based on fieldwork largely collected during the CPA interim period by Sudanese and European researchers, this volume sheds light on the dynamics of change and the relationship between microscale and macroscale processes which took place in Sudan between the 1980s and the independence of South Sudan in 2011. Contributors’ various disciplinary approaches—socio-anthropological, geographical, political, historical, linguistic—focus on the general issue of “access to resources.” The book analyzes major transformations which affected Sudan in the framework of globalization, including land and urban issues; water management; “new” actors and “new conflicts”; and language, identity, and ideology.

“It is unusual but refreshing to have a book on contemporary Sudan that does not fixate on the previous and/or ongoing violent conflicts in that country between the north and former southern region, now the independent nation South Sudan… Each contribution is lucid and informative, so those with a special interest in this newly reconstructed country will welcome this volume…Highly recommended.” · Choice

“There really is very little published on some of these topics, and genuine field research of the kind which has been conducted by [this] number of contributors is rare.” · Justin Willis, University of Durham

“This book brings together sixteen original, detailed field studies... [which] focus on localities across the northerly provinces of the Sudan as it was constituted [in 1989–2011]... The events and processes of this ‘interim period’ following the civil war have deep roots in the past of the whole region, and continuing relevance to ‘both Sudans’ today.” · Wendy James, University of Oxford

Munzoul A. M. Assal is Associate Professor of Social Anthropology and Deputy Director of the Peace Research Institute, University of Khartoum. Publications include Diaspora Within and Without Africa: Homogeneity, Heterogeneity, Variation (co-edited with Leif Manger, 2006), and forthcoming Fifty Years of Anthropology in the Sudan: Past, Present and Future (co-edited with Musa Adam Abdul-Jalil).
 

François Ireton is a Socio-Economist and Researcher at French National Center of Scientific Research, working in the Centre Jacques Berque, Rabat. He has co-edited Dynamiques de la pauvreté en Afrique du Nord et au Moyen Orient (2005) and L’Egypte au présent. Inventaire d’une société avant révolution (2011).
 

Barbara Casciarri is Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology, University Paris 8. She edited with A. M. Ahmed a special issue of Nomadic Peoples 13, 1 (2009), “Pastoralists under pressure in present-day Sudan” and with M. Van Aken a special issue of Journal des anthropologues 132-133 (2013), “Anthropology and Water(s).”