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Paper short abstract

This paper examines the connections between precariousness of human lives and social transformations in the context of conflict-induced displacement in South Sudan.

Paper long abstract

In this paper, I examine the connections between precariousness of human lives and social transformations in the context of conflict-induced displacement. Based on ethnographic fieldwork among displaced South Sudanese Nuer in Egypt and Kenya and following trajectories of refugee return to Western Upper Nile in South Sudan, I analyse tensions among the 'returnee' and stayee young women and men in post-war South Sudan. These tensions revolve around changing social norms related to gender and generational orders and they are mirrored in different aspirations and life-making projects employed by returnees and stayees. I argue that to understand the type of gendered and generational displacement uncertaintities brought about by the 1983-2005 war in South Sudan one needs to contextualise them within the wider historical context of social transformations and displacements in Sudans. Using the concept of precarious lives (Judith Butler) I critically examine Lubkemann's argument of the effects that displacement has as a process on other mainstream processes of social transformation. I argue that while displacement and forced migration are part of wider historical processes that affect social transformations, the type of precariousness and uncertainties that war-induced displacement brings often reconfigures gender and generational relations in abrupt, dramatic and contradictory ways. While for some displacement and post-war return opened up possibilities of positive change and empowerment in terms of improving their social status, others suffered loss and further subjugation. I analyse these diverse changes in collective and individual aspirations, social and self identities, life/place-making practices and projects in the context of nation-building in South Sudan.