The Rift Valley Institute is pleased to announce the seventh Juba Lecture Series under the theme of ‘Everyday Economies: Historical Perspectives and Present-day Realities in South Sudan’. The lectures will take place from 3:00pm – 5:30pm on 19 and 20 November 2018, in partnership with the Institute for Justice and Peace Studies (IJPS) at the Catholic University of South Sudan in Juba, at their campus in Juba Na’Bari, Thongpiny.
Humanitarian actors observe that today over 60 per cent of South Sudan’s population are suffering acute food insecurity in South Sudan (UNICEF, WFP and FAO). Behind the headline statistics is another story, which is concerned with South Sudan’s long-term transition from subsistence livelihoods towards a market-oriented economy, and dependence on cash-based transactions. This underlying shift contributes to the current levels of conflict, hunger and displacement.
South Sudan’s economic transition is part of wider regional and global forces, to which the territory and its peoples have long been connected: from the nineteenth century ivory and slave trades; the incorporation into a colonial state and global empire; the growing dependence on food imports and humanitarian assistance; and the exploitation of oil and extraction of other natural resources, such as timber and gold. Cross-border regional trade and movement has always been a particularly important dynamic—reflected in the everyday lived experiences of South Sudanese—which intensified significantly with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005.
The 2018 Juba lecture series aims to deepen understanding of past and present-day economic systems and transitions. This will include reflection on internally and externally-driven changes to historic livelihood systems and the impact of their decline on customary authority, and gendered and generational relations. The series will also highlight how South Sudan’s people have navigated, and continue to give meaning to, these economic transformations and insecurities.
19 November: Everyday Economies: Historical perspectives
20 November: Everyday Economies: Present-day realities
Since 2010, the RVI has organized an annual series of public lectures in Juba, designed to promote public discussion around important political and cultural issues in South Sudan, bringing together academics, students, local community leaders, political representatives, and religious and civil society actors. Previous lectures have focused on the role of civil society (2016), lessons of historic peace agreements (2014) and the constitution (2013) and have, since 2016, been organized in partnership with IJPS.
RVI will also publish an open-access record of this event in collaboration with IJPS. All RVI publications are free for download in PDF format under Creative Commons license.
