Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T00:32:14.906Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

THE STRATEGIC INSTRUMENTALIZATION OF LAND TENURE IN ‘STATE-BUILDING’: THE CASE OF JUBA, SOUTH SUDAN

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2013

Naseem Badiey
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Debates over land tenure have been instrumental to state-building in South Sudan since the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). Focusing on the local dynamics of post-conflict reconstruction in the town of Juba, this article argues that amidst the political and institutional change inaugurated by the transition from war to peace, debates over land provided a basis for the negotiation of the South Sudanese state. Actors at a variety of levels employed competing interpretations of rights to land as state-building strategies – as tools towards promoting particular visions of the state and of citizenship.

Résumé

Les débats sur le foncier ont joué un rôle important dans la construction de l’État au Sud-Soudan depuis l'Accord de paix global signé en 2005. Centré sur la dynamique locale de la reconstruction post-conflit dans la ville de Juba, cet article soutient que les débats sur la terre ont servi de base de négociation dans le contexte de changement politique et institutionnel inauguré par la transition de la guerre à la paix. Les acteurs, à différents niveaux, ont employé des interprétations concurrentes des droits à la terre comme stratégies de construction de l’État, comme outils de promotion de visions particulières de l’État et de la citoyenneté.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 83 , Special Issue 1: Land Politics in Africa: Constituting Authority over Territory, Property and Persons , February 2013 , pp. 57 - 77
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alexander, J. (2006) The Unsettled Land: state-making and the politics of land in Zimbabwe, 1893–2003. Athens OH: Ohio University Press.Google Scholar
Badal, R. (1994) ‘Political cleavages within the southern Sudan: an empirical analysis of the re-division debate’, in Harir, Sharif and Tvedt, Terje (eds), Short-Cut to Decay: the case of Sudan. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.Google Scholar
Berry, S. (2002) ‘Debating the land question in Africa’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 44 (4): 638–68.Google Scholar
Blom Hansen, T. and Stepputat, F. (2001) States of Imagination: ethnographic explorations of the postcolonial state – politics, history, and culture. Durham NC: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boone, C. (2007) ‘Property and constitutional order: land tenure reform and the future of the African state’, African Affairs 106 (425): 557–86.Google Scholar
Call, C. and Wyeth, V. (2008) Building States to Build Peace. Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caplan, R. (2005) International Governance of War-Torn Territories: rule and reconstruction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chabal, P. and Daloz, J.-P. (1999) Africa Works: disorder as political instrument. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Chesterman, S. (2004) You, the People: the United Nations, transitional administration, and state-building. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Collier, P. and Hoeffler, A. (2002) ‘Aid, policy, and growth in post-conflict societies’. Working Paper No. 2902, Washington DC: World Bank Development Research Group.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collins, R. (1983) Shadows in the Grass: Britain in the Southern Sudan, 1918–1956. New Haven CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Doyle, M. and Sambanis, N. (2006) Making War and Building Peace. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Gupta, A. (2005) ‘Blurred boundaries: the discourse of corruption, the culture of politics, and the imagined state’, American Ethnologist, 22 (2): 375–402.Google Scholar
Hagmann, T. and Péclard, D. (2010) ‘Negotiating statehood: dynamics of power and domination in Africa’, Development and Change 41 (4): 539–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heathershaw, J. and Lambach, D. (2008) ‘Introduction: post-conflict spaces and approaches to state-building’, Journal of Intervention and State-building 2 (3).Google Scholar
Johnson, D. H. (1988) The Southern Sudan, London: The Minority Rights Group.Google Scholar
Kasfir, N. (1977) ‘Southern Sudanese politics since the Addis Ababa Agreement’, African Affairs 76 (303): 143–66.Google Scholar
Krasner, S. (2004) ‘Sharing sovereignty: new institutions for collapsed and failing states’, International Security 29 (2): 85–120.Google Scholar
Kriger, N. (2003) Guerrilla Veterans in Post-War Zimbabwe: symbolic and violent politics, 1980–1987. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lund, C. (2006) ‘Twilight institutions: public authority and local politics in Africa’, Development and Change 37 (4): 685–706.Google Scholar
Lund, C. (2008) Local Politics and the Dynamics of Property in Africa. New York NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lund, C. (2011) ‘Fragmented sovereignty: land reform and dispossession in Laos’, Journal of Peasant Studies 38 (4): 885–905.Google Scholar
Migdal, J. (2001) State in Society: studying how states and societies transform and constitute one another. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Migdal, J., Kohli, A. and Shue, V. (1994) State Power and Social Forces: domination and transformation in the Third World. Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Onoma, A. K. (2009) The Politics of Property Rights Institutions in Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Paris, R. (2004) At War's End: building peace after civil conflict. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Paris, R. and Sisk, T. (eds) The Dilemmas of State-building: confronting the contradictions of postwar peace operations. New York NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Peters, P. (1994) Dividing the Commons: politics, policy, and culture in Botswana. Charlottesville VA and London: University Press of Virginia.Google Scholar
Peters, P. (2004) ‘Inequality and social conflict over land in Africa’, Journal of Agrarian Change 4 (3): 269–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schomerus, M. and Allen, T. (2011) Southern Sudan at Odds with Itself: dynamics of conflict and predicaments of peace. London: Development Studies Institute, London School of Economics.Google Scholar
Sharma, A. and Gupta, A. (2006) The Anthropology of the State: a reader. Malden: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Ubink, J. M. (2008) In the Land of the Chiefs: customary law, land conflicts, and the role of the state in peri-urban Ghana. Leiden: Leiden University Press.Google Scholar