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Rift Valley Institute

Making local knowledge work

Region: Sudan and South Sudan

Grains As Life: The value of sorghum and millet amongst the Abyei Dinka

Displaced Tastes is a research project run by the Rift Valley Institute in partnership with the Catholic University of South Sudan under the X-Border Local Research Network. The project examines the changing tastes for food in South Sudan in the context of the country’s economic transition and place in the regional, cross-border economy of grain. […]

Cultures of Dialogue: Local and National Experiences in South Sudan

Mounting peace agreements and numerous ceasefire violations have resulted in sustained international pressure on South Sudan’s leaders to end a civil war that has displaced some 4 million people and created a severe humanitarian crisis. In an effort to address the root causes of the crisis, South Sudan’s president, Salva Kiir Mayardit, announced his government’s […]

‘You Can Now Get Engaged’: Meanings of cassava among the Pojulu of South Sudan

Displaced Tastes is a research project run by the Rift Valley Institute in partnership with the Catholic University of South Sudan under the X-Border Local Research Network. The project examines the changing tastes for food in South Sudan in the context of the country’s economic transition and place in the regional, cross-border economy of grain. […]

Migrating with Seeds: Women, agricultural knowledge and displacement in South Sudan

Displaced Tastes is a research project run by the Rift Valley Institute in partnership with the Catholic University of South Sudan under the X-Border Local Research Network. The project examines the changing tastes for food in South Sudan in the context of the country’s economic transition and place in the regional, cross-border economy of grain. […]

How Sudan’s gold boom is changing labour relations in Blue Nile state

Sudan’s Blue Nile state, which borders Ethiopia’s Benishangul-Gumuz region on its eastern side, and South Sudan’s Upper Nile region on its south-west frontier, has a long history of small-scale artisanal gold mining. Gold is found in the region’s hills and in the alluvial planes south of the Blue Nile. In Blue Nile, artisanal gold mining […]

Rethinking Aid in Borderland Spaces

Taking the Ethiopia-South Sudan borderlands as a case study, Rethinking Aid in Borderland Spaces: The case of Akobo argues that the traditional modalities of the aid industry are not fit for purpose in a world where transnationalism is a daily reality for communities, even—perhaps even especially—in the most geographically remote locations. The transnational networks that shape […]

Security elites and gold mining in Sudan’s economic transition

Key Points A major challenge for Sudan’s new, technocratic administration is reform of the country’s poorly performing economy. Previous attempts, including the lifting of subsidies on bread and fuel in January 2018, were one of the drivers for the popular protests that led to President Omar al-Bashir’s removal in April 2019. In spite of Bashir’s […]

Kiir Consolidates Power through Border Deal with Khartoum

Key Points In August 2019 a series of armed clashes occurred in Aweil East state (formerly Northern Bahr el- Ghazal), on the Sudan – South Sudan border between militias aligned to Paul Malong’s South Sudan United Front (SSUF) and the South Sudan People’s Defence Forces (SSPDF). These clashes were one consequence of a new border […]

Tarikh Tana (Our History): Episode 5: Women and Customary Law in South Sudan

  This show is brought to you under the South Sudan National Archives Project, supported by Norway and implemented by UNESCO in partnership with RVI, and in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports. The fifth Tarikh Tana (Our History) radio show in this second series will focus on “Women and Customary Law […]