The dead are just to drink from
Recycling ideas of revenge among the western Dinka, South Sudan
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2103299 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Naomi Pendle (0000-0003-4679-6617, corresponding author), Naomi R Pendle |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 88 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 99-121 |
| Publication date | 2018-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Africa (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0001-9720 • E-ISSN: 1750-0184 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0001972017000584 |
| OpenAlex | W2768148779 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 15 |
| References cited | 26 |
Governments in South Sudan have long built their authority on their ability to fashion changing regimes of revenge and compensation, war and peace. Governments' capture of these regimes has resulted in the secularization of compensation despite the ongoing spiritual consequences of lethal violence. This article explores these issues by focusing on the western Dinka of Greater Gogrial. In recent years, they have been closely linked to the highest levels of government through familial networks and comradeship. Violent revenge among the western Dinka is best understood not as revealing the absence of institutions of government, but as a consequence of the projection of government power over the details of local, normative codes and sanctions. In this age of post-state violence with automatic weapons, oil-wealthy elites and ambiguous rights, government authority and intention have often been erratic. As government authority now backs up these regimes of compensation and revenge, governments' shifting nature has reshaped their meaning. In the last decade, the declining political space for peace and the disruption of the cattle economy has undermined the current value of compensation and its ability to appease the spiritual and moral demands for revenge. It has even distorted regimes to the extent that children become legitimate targets for revenge. The article is informed by archival sources and based on ethnographic research among the western Dinka (South Sudan) between 2010 and 2013, and further research in South Sudan until 2015
Compensation (psychology · Government (linguistics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sanctions · Sociology · State (computer science · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · Law · Political Conflict and Governance
‘Shield of Cattle’
Power and public authority
Given Names and Lived Closeness
Chiefs’ Courts and Peacebuilding in South Sudan
Remaking the Law to Protect Civilians
Rethinking Inter-Communal Violence in Africa
Social networks and the dead
Competing authorities and norms of restraint
Defining human rights in the socio-cultural and political context of South Sudan
The 'Nuer of Dinka money' and the demands of the dead
He Cannot Marry Her
Law and Famine
Critical Livelihood Assets and Conflict Perceptions of Aweil and Yambio, South Sudan
The Dynamics of Herder-Farmer Conflicts in Plateau State, Nigeria, and Central Darfur State, Sudan
Rural Radicalism in the Capital City
The root causes of Sudan's civil wars
Nuer Dilemmas
Ancient Law
Greed and Grievance
The Logic of Violence in Civil War
Is local beautiful? Peacebuilding between international interventions and locally led initiatives
Points of order? Local government meetings as negotiation tables in South Sudanese history
A poisonous thorn in our hearts
When kleptocracy becomes insolvent
South Sudan
Briefing
Judicial Regulation and Administrative Control
The Peace in the Feud
Tradition and Modernization. A Challenge for Law among the Dinka of the Sudan
The cattle of money and the cattle of girls among the Nuer, 1930-83
Nuer Prophets
Sudan's Prolonged Second Civil War and the Militarization of Nuer and Dinka Ethnic Identities
The fighting Nuer
Nuer ethnicity militarized
Contesting the militarization of the places where they met
Land Regimes and the Structure of Politics
The Past and Space
| Unique citing works | 15 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,5 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2026 (7) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 14 |