Paper short abstract:

Against political stalemate cutting across urban-rural ethnic communities sharing a common geographic origin and language, the paper documents an anti-cyclic movement aiming at restoring cohesion and promoting social innovation, using local communicative resources.

Paper long abstract:

The Tura expression used for development by its (female) promoters is pɛ́ɛ dɔyè 'village building'. While the term pɛ́ɛ includes urban as well as rural habitats, reference of pɛ́ɛ dɔyè is not to the former but to the latter kind of context, namely to development activities targeting rural communities. While, as a result of the

population drain since the 70-ies, the economic and political weight had shifted to the then prosperous cities in the south, generating new needs, and also new resources for satisfying them, the inverse dependency never lost its importance. The salient expression lúbhà lɔ́

'to buy blessings', a synonym for urban-based rural development is emblematic of an encompassing symbiotic relation, which came under severe strain when, due to the partition of the country in a southern part under government and a northern half under rebel control, the

diaspora was cut from the home area, the circulation of goods and persons between the rural and the urban communities virtually interrupted for half a decade.

In this context of protracted crisis, pɛ́ɛ dɔyè paradoxically takes a new meaning. The paper purports to illustrate this process of reinterpretation by an active and representative segment of the female diaspora, its choice of language for efficient communication, and of its - ultimately successful - attempts at redefining a gender-inclusive social contract for development, while avoiding to pit urban citizenship

against village tradition. The paper draws on documentation from various settings covering the period from the outbreak of the war until the post-conflict phase.