Paper long abstract:

The Three Towns (Omdurman, Khartoum and Khartoum North) are today a multiethnic and multinational eight million metropolis. A considerable part of the population consists of Southern Sudanese migrants and displaced that came during the over 20 year lasting civil war in South Sudan to the capital. These people are categorized as displaced people, people who are "out o place": thereby assuming a former situation of being in place, a place that can be called home. After the Comprehensive Peace Agreement from 2005, this frequently only imagined home becomes now a real place for the IDP's to which they are supposed to go back.

In the paper I will follow the concept of displacement and how it is reflected in the narratives of Southern Sudanese youth. The decision about "going home " or "staying home" depends not only on the opportunities and perspectives in the respective home areas but also on questions of belonging and identity. Different forms of belonging became visible. These patterns of belonging are closely connected to specific places which are called "home". Going "home" is partly experienced as new form of displacement. The paper explores the negotiation of belonging and differing identities using the case of Bari youths who are brought up in Khartoum and are challenged by the opportunity to go "home".