1.1 SUDAN IN CONTEXT
Countries with a severe crisis of national identity face serious and diverse dilemmas. On the one hand, identity provides individuals with a sense of belonging, dignity, and security, especially in weak states that fail to ensure assistance to its people. Identities can also provide the foundation for nationhood based on the distinctive attributes of a group (Deng, 1995: vii). In the context of nation-states, conflicts of identities happen when one or more some groups rebel against the oppression inflicted by the dominant group, which is usually expressed through: denial of recognition, exclusionary policies, or marginalization, amongst others. Under authoritarian political systems, as it was the case of colonial states, disillusioned groups may be too oppressed to uphold their demands effectively. However, in the case of post-colonial African states, such as Sudan
1, long-repressed ethnic and religious tensions begin to manifest themselves in violence, threatening the state with fragmentation and disintegration (Deng, 1995: 1).
Since its independence from the British, in 1956, Sudan has witnessed an ongoing civil war for diverse reasons, such as: unequal regional socioeconomic and political development; a neglect of diversity issues; and a weakened country economy coupled with the discovery of oil resources in the South (El-Nager, 2011: 1).
After a brief period of peace, with the signature of the Addis Ababa Peace Agreement in 1972, the conflict resumed in 1983, when such Agreement was abrogated. During the following two decades, the socio-political turmoil in the South led to the loss of over two million lives and five million internally displaced persons (IDPs); one of the largest displacement flows in the world (Grabska, 2011: 3).
The failure of both sides to the conflict, The National Islamic Front (NIF, and later the National Congress Party, NCP) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), to obtain a decisive military victory and the growing international pressure, forced the Government to start peace negotiations, which culminated in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), in January 2005 (Sikainga, 2011: 16).
1 For the purposes of this paper, and in order to avoid any confusion, “Sudan” shall be used to refer to the country before the separation of south Sudan. The “Republic of Sudan” and the “Republic of South Sudan” shall be the terms used to refer to both countries after such separation.
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Besides containing arrangements for the sharing of powers and for the distribution of oil resources the CPA asserted the principle of self-determination for south Sudan after a 6-year transitional period (Chapters II, III and art.1.3 of the CPA). Although the agreement ostensibly ended the conflict between the North and the South, and was expected to create a new social and political transformation, its practical implementation adopted the same North-South dichotomies, failing to address the root causes of the Sudanese conflict (Sikainga, 2011: 16).
Thus, in the context of the January 2011 Referendum for self-determination in south Sudan (as established in the CPA), and after the formal secession of the region in July 2011, southern Sudanese living in Khartoum and other northern towns for decades, became foreigners after the secession vote (El-Nager, 2011: 1), with all the legal and social implication this entails.
1.2 OBJECTIVES AND METHODS
The complexity and interconnectedness of the several issues currently taking place both in
the Republic of Sudan (RoS) and the Republic of South Sudan (RoSS) pose a challenge to
the researcher, when it comes to delimiting a specific research question. Southern
Sudanese currently living in Khartoum are far from being a homogeneous group. Both
their reasons to initially move to the North as well as their decisions to stay are so varied,
that trying to assess them all would be beyond the scope of this dissertation. Indeed, while
there is quite some research done on the hard living conditions of the IDPs living in the
suburbs of Khartoum, only a few investigations have been conducted on southern
Sudanese who live in the centre of Khartoum and seem well integrated in the society
(Bützner, 2011: 206). The present research, thus, is based on a very specific group of
southern Sudanese young educated women, most of them born in Khartoum, whose
decision to go to RoSS or stay in Khartoum, has been and still is influenced by the political
context, their life experiences in Khartoum, family pressure, feelings of belonging, and their
perception of human security in RoSS. Therefore, the objective of this dissertation is
twofold. On the one hand, it assesses the unique identity of these southern Sudanese
women, who, despite having spent most of their lives Khartoum, were born in the bosom
of traditional southern Sudanese families and were raised by them, becoming, thus, a very
singular group, whose identity lies somewhere between the North and the South. On the
other hand, this research shall analyze the conditions and factors shaping the decisions
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taken by these women, namely: remaining in Khartoum, going to RoSS, or maintaining a level of connection and residence in both, which inevitably implies a series of challenges, influenced by their interests, motivations, and perceptions of their own identity.
Within this context, several questions can be asked: 1) How do this group of young and educated southern Sudanese women in Khartoum perceive and face their current situation? 2) What perceptions do they hold, what expectations do they have, and which challenges do they face when considering whether and when to ‘return’ in RoSS? 3) Which are the factors influencing the decision to stay or leave?
After considering the nature of the field of this research and the attempt to conduct an in-depth analysis of an unexplored phenomenon, the current study is based on a qualitative approach, more specifically on grounded theory, because it provides the opportunity to stay open for research subjects and methods during the whole process, so that unexpected information can take part in the emerging theory, whereby hypothesis, instead of being made in advance, can be changed during the research. Indeed, when examining socio-cultural and behavioural topics, qualitative methods are more helpful, since they permit a closer contact with the subjects of research, who at the same time provide their own personal perceptions of a particular social phenomenon (Bützer, 2011: 141-142).
1.3 STRUCTURE OF THE RESEARCH
This dissertation has been organised around five main chapters, organised as follows:
After this introductory chapter, which provides a general overview of the Sudanese
context, as well as the objectives, methods and structure of this dissertation, Chapter 2
contains a thorough review of the most relevant literature on nation building and national
identity, which makes up the theoretical framework of this dissertation. Linking up with
this part, and in order to understand the historical process that dichotomized Sudan since
time immemorial, Chapter 3 provides the reader with a background of the evolution of
North-South relations in the country since early Arab incursions, going through
colonialism, until current times, namely, after the CPA in 2005. This context should help
to understand the situation faced by southern Sudanese living in Khartoum, more
particularly from an identity perspective. This Chapter also addresses the issue of the
national identity crisis in Sudan, and the complex citizenship issues after the separation.
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Chapter 4 gives a thorough account of the methodology, the settings, and complexities of
the research. Before reaching to the conclusions in the last chapter of this dissertation,
Chapter 5 is entirely based on the fieldwork conducted and the main results obtained after
analysing the data.
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