Birth of a State: Rethinking South Sudanese Collective Identity through Identity Anchors
Following the independence of South Sudan in 2011, the coherence of South Sudanese “national” identity has come into question. Before the Southern secession, Northerners were united by a common language and religion, but Southerners did not have this uniting reality. For this reason, scholars now w...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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University of Hradec Králové
2022-01-01
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| Series: | Modern Africa |
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| Online Access: | https://journals.uhk.cz/modernafrica/article/view/207 |
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| Summary: | Following the independence of South Sudan in 2011, the coherence of South Sudanese “national” identity has come into question. Before the Southern secession, Northerners were united by a common language and religion, but Southerners did not have this uniting reality. For this reason, scholars now wonder whether there is a collective South Sudanese identity because the sine qua non of unity among South Sudanese tribes was a collective opposition to Northern Sudan. However, the present article defends a collective South Sudanese identity based on how “nation-building” has been undertaken historically. It also argues that tribal diversity in itself does not negate the presence of a South Sudanese collective “national” identity because internal tribal divisions are a global phenomenon and “tribal” and “national” identities are activated contextually.
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| ISSN: | 2336-3274 2570-7558 |