By John Ryle Wendy James, who died in Oxford on 27 April, was one of the outstanding anthropologists of her generation. In a trilogy of immaculate field-work based monographs she chronicled the culture and history of the Uduk people…
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We, the staff of the Rift Valley Institute, are extremely concerned about current events in Sudan, and for the lives of those affected by the conflict between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which…
The South Sudan National Archive Project is a multiphase project for the conservation, reordering, cataloguing and digitization of the historical government records of South Sudan. The project has been designed to safeguard the contents of the archive and to make them…
About SSWRN The South Sudan Women’s Research Network Project (SSWRN) promotes local women’s voices in research development and heritage preservation. It does this through a capacity building and training project that aims to invest in and enhance civil society’s…
On 8 November RVI held a Forum ‘Understanding the Coup in Khartoum’ with speakers Kholood Khair, Eddie Thomas, Muez Ali, Sharath Srinivasan, Alden Young and Margie Buchanan-Smith. The following 5 points collates various comments made by the participants…
By Machot Amuom, RVI Researcher. I remember the joy and peace we had after Wunlit in 1999. When the 2013 violence happened, killing was done. When peace was signed in 2015 and again in 2018, nothing changed. When…
RVI’s Magnus Taylor speaks with RVI researchers, Joseph Diing Majok and Nicki Kindersley, about their latest report, Breaking Out of the Borderlands: Understanding migrant pathways from Northern Bahr el-Ghazal, South Sudan. The report takes the phenomena of the…
The Rift Valley Institute, in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, Museums and National Heritage, is sharing selected, approved documents from the South Sudan National Archives through social media channels to showcase the range of information available in…
The Rift Valley Institute, Catholic University of South Sudan, and Likikiri Collective are pleased to release the fruits of their latest collaboration. ‘”We’re Graduates Now…” An Oral History Exhibition of University Graduates’ Educational Journeys’ is borne out of an oral…
Displaced Tastes is a collaborative research project run by the Rift Valley Institute and the Catholic University of South Sudan as part of the X-Border LocalResearch Network. The project examines how experiences of conflict, regional displacement and mobility,…
Recent Publications
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‘THE FUEL IS US’: WATER, OIL AND DEBT ON THE SUDAN-SOUTH SUDAN BORDERLANDS
February 18, 2025
South Sudan and Sudan’s borderlands are run by a patchwork of armed authorities. Since early 2019, when opposition forces were effectively wiped out, these zones of control have remained relatively fixed, even as the war in Sudan drew close to
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Conflict, displacement and children in paid work in the Sudan-South Sudan borderlands
February 17, 2025
In this blog, Manal examines the pressures forcing many displaced people, including children, to seek paid labour to supplement dwindling support mechanisms in camps in South Sudan. The author draws on her research in 2024 as part of the XCEPT
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DOMINANT PATTERNS AND DYNAMICS OF URBAN CONTESTATIONS IN HAWASSA
February 12, 2025
Studying urban contestations in Ethiopia’s secondary cities can help us understand how the urban centres outside of Addis Ababa are evolving during an ongoing period of significant socio-economic and political change. In this regard, Hawassa in Sidama region provides an