RVI Fellow Douglas Johnson discussed the implications of South Sudan’s independence for the new nation’s history, historiography, and sense of identity in his keynote lecture to the 9th International South Sudan and Sudan Studies Conference in Bonn in July 2012. Describing South Sudan as ‘a missing piece in the jigsaw of Africa’s past’, he offered a robust critique of the various outside prejudices and preconceptions that have continued to inform, or misinform, many research programmes.

Minor Demarcations, Micro-Dams—Major Drama? Ethno-territorial expansionism and precarious peace in the Oromia–Somali borderlands of eastern Ethiopia
The report highlights the overlapping claims to and distributive struggles over territory and resources in the Oromia-Somali borderlands which animated inter-regional competition between the Oromia