War and Genocide in South Sudan

Clémence Pinaud

Open Access Published by Cornell University Press 2022

War and Genocide in South Sudan

Clémence Pinaud
Funded by: Indiana University / TOME

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501753022

Overview
Contents

About this book

Using more than a decade's worth of fieldwork in South Sudan, Clémence Pinaud here explores the relationship between predatory wealth accumulation, state formation, and a form of racism—extreme ethnic group entitlement—that has the potential to result in genocide.

War and Genocide in South Sudan traces the rise of a predatory state during civil war in southern Sudan and its transformation into a violent Dinka ethnocracy after the region's formal independence. That new state, Pinaud argues, waged genocide against non-Dinka civilians in 2013-2017.

During a civil war that wrecked the region between 1983 and 2005, the predominantly Dinka Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) practiced ethnically exclusive and predatory wealth accumulation. Its actions fostered extreme group entitlement and profoundly shaped the rebel state. Ethnic group entitlement eventually grew into an ideology of ethnic supremacy.

After that war ended, the semi-autonomous state turned into a violent and predatory ethnocracy—a process accelerated by independence in 2011. The rise of exclusionary nationalism, a new security landscape, and inter-ethnic political competition contributed to the start of a new round of civil war in 2013, in which the recently founded state unleashed violence against nearly all non-Dinka ethnic groups. Pinaud investigates three campaigns waged by the South Sudan government in 2013–2017 and concludes they were genocidal—they sought to destroy non-Dinka target groups. She demonstrates how the perpetrators' sense of group entitlement culminated in land-grabs that amounted to a genocidal conquest echoing the imperialist origins of modern genocides.

Thanks to generous funding from TOME, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.

Author / Editor information

Clémence Pinaud is Assistant Professor at Indiana University. Follow her on X @ClemencePinaud.

Reviews

Scott Straus, University of Wisconsin, Madison, author of Making and Unmaking Nations:

Pinaud does an excellent job at documenting the violence on South Sudan and casting such a critical eye on the SPLA, especially from the ground up. War and Genocide in South Sudan is full of original and unique material that is powerful and compelling.

Will Reno, Northwestern University, author of Warlord Politics and African States:

War and Genocide in South Sudan is a deeply researched, rich and fascinating book about a troubling subject, and makes significant contributions to the field.

Pinaud's approach is clear-eyed and systematic. She walks a careful line, avoiding oversimplifications that would characterize the war as an 'ethnic' conflict while demonstrating the central role that instrumentalized ethnicity played in fomenting and prosecuting events and is nuanced in her analysis of the various factions. Pinaud's book will be essential reading for anyone hoping to understand the roots of the present South Sudanese conflict; it also makes a significant contribution to sociological understanding of the political formation of mass atrocity.

A deeply researched, arresting, and often brutal account of civil war in South Sudan, the violent events of which Pinaud argues constitute genocide. Based on 550 interviews across a range of locations, it is the detailed, first-person accounts of people's experiences of the war that brings the intimate experience of violence into sharp, and often brutal, relief. Required reading for the many people who care about South Sudan and its future.

Clemence Pinaud's book, War and Genocide in South Sudan, is one of the few books on South Sudan that attaches importance to oral tradition as a means for reconstructing unwritten history. War and Genocide in South Sudan adds to the historiography on a range of topics relative to the Sudan: war, conflict, the politics of liberation, the economy, and genocide. Future scholars who wish to write about the Second and Third Civil Wars will start from where Pinaud's research stops.

Topics

Frontmatter Open Access Download PDF	i
Contents Open Access Download PDF	v
Acknowledgments Open Access Download PDF	vii
List of Abbreviations Open Access Download PDF	ix
From Predation to Genocide Open Access Download PDF	1
1. From the Turkiyya to the Second Civil War: 1820–1983 Open Access Download PDF	17
2. The SPLA and the Making of an Ethnic Dinka Army: 1983–2005 Open Access Download PDF	42
3. War Economy and State-Making in SPLA Areas: 1983–2005 Open Access Download PDF	63
4. SPLA Violence, Group-Making, and Expansion: 1983–2005 Open Access Download PDF	86
5. Nationalism, Predation, and Ethnic Ranking: 2005–13 Open Access Download PDF	105
6. The Making of a Violent Ethnocracy: 2005–13 Open Access Download PDF	126
7. Civil War and the First Genocidal Phase: December 2013 Open Access Download PDF	145
8. The Second Phase of the Genocide in Unity State: 2014–15 Open Access Download PDF	161
9. The Third Phase of the Genocide in Equatoria: 2015–17 Open Access Download PDF	187
Ethnic Supremacy and Genocidal Conquest Open Access Download PDF	215
Appendix: List of Interview Locations Open Access Download PDF	225
Notes Open Access Download PDF	227
Bibliography Open Access Download PDF	295
Index Open Access Download PDF	309

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 330
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 3
- Line drawings: 1
- Images: 6
- Other: 6 b&w halftones, 1 b&w line drawing, 3 maps
Keywords: Sudan People’s Liberation Army; Corruption in South Sudan; war economy; sexual violence in south sudan

eBook

Published: February 15, 2021
ISBN: 9781501753022