Introduction

This chapter offer an analysis of the identity politics constructed and pursued by the sedentary Nuba as a group indigenous to the region. At the same time, attention is paid to the nomadic Baqqara's responses within the overall national political setting after the CPA. This analysis is based on the author's fieldwork and theoretically informed by several overlapping concepts such as region, territory, autochthony, indigeneity.

During the war, the Nuba were fairly successful in summoning their perceived essential attributes in order to create a strategic unity. Such attributes were not naturally or intrinsically essential, or, put another way, not already in place and in use. Rather, they are constructed and invoked when politically useful. Once these certain essential attributes were called upon by the endangered Nuba, they were essentialized as an unfailing link between all the Nuba, as a people belonging to a common origin and now facing a common threat. In order to maintain unity through the struggle, the Nuba were able to symbolize these attributes and eventually absorb all differences between them for collective cultural and physical survival. The focus here is on how the Nuba constructed their claim to an autochthonous identity and how they articulated their ethno-political identities in the struggle.