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Building Resilience and Everyday Peace at the Micro-Levels in South Sudan

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The Palgrave Handbook of Religion, Peacebuilding, and Development in Africa

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Abstract

An argument in peacebuilding holds that contacts between grassroots actors in a context of armed conflict can reduce prejudice, improve intergroup relations, and promote peaceful relations at the micro-level. This chapter assesses the veracity of this claim by examining the impacts of religious peacebuilding activities, which the Evangelical Alliance of South Sudan (EASS) and Pan-African Christian Women’s Alliance (PACWA) implemented from December 2018 to February 2020. Using the bottom-up peacebuilding approach and the concept of everyday peace, the chapter specifically examines three themes that the two actors identified as indicators of everyday peace: enhancing individual resilience, transforming individual perceptions of the ethnic ‘other’, and improving relations between individuals from different ethnic groups. The chapter analyses primary evidence from 92 respondents and secondary evidence from 17 documents. It finds that EASS and PACWA addressed the three themes by reducing prejudice and hostilities, changing enemy images, re-humanising ethnic ‘others’, and encouraging the formation of social networks and implementation of collective activities. The chapter concludes that the two partners hoped that attaining many islands of everyday peace at the lower level would contribute to regional peace formation.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Data on the South Sudanese population is very unreliable. However, various studies claim that there are at least 64 ethnic groups, although they differ on the classification of some of the ethnic groups into language families (e.g. whether to classify them as Niger-Congo or Ubangian language families and Central-Sudanic or Nilo-Saharan language families). The most populous group, Dinka, comprises 36% of the population followed by Nuer at 16%. Each of the other big groups (Azande, Bari, and Shilluk) has less than 5% of the population; none of the other 59 groups reach 2%. Most of the ethnic groups are very small; studies indicate that each of the 30 small ethnic groups has a population of less than 30,000, while each of the 13 groups at the bottom has a population of less than 10,000. Moreover, studies show that 35 of the ethnic groups are concentrated in the 3 Equatoria regions (18 in Eastern Equatoria, 11 in Central Equatoria, and 5 in Western Equatoria) and 18 ethnic groups are located in the Western Bahr el Ghazal State.

  2. 2.

    South Sudan in divided into ten states: Eastern Equatoria, Central Equatoria, Western Equatoria, Jonglei, Unity, Upper Nile, Lakes, Warrap, Western Bahr el Ghazal, and Northern Bahr el Ghazal.

  3. 3.

    Among these groups were: Arrow Boys which emerged in the mid-2000s; Revolutionary Movement for National Salvation (REMNASA) that was formed in early 2015; Alfred Futiyo group that emerged in 2015; South Sudan National Liberation Movement (SSNLM) that was formed in 2015; and National Salvation Front (NSF) that emerged in March 2017. For a detailed study of these movements, see Koos, C. (2014). Why and How Civil Defense Militias Emerge: The Case of the Arrow Boys in South Sudan. Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 37(12): 1039–1057; Jok, M.J., Schomerus, M., Taban, C., Kuol, L.B.D., Breidlid, I.M., & Arensen, M.J. (2017). Informal Armies: Community Defence Groups in South Sudan’s Civil War. London: Saferworld; International Crisis Group (ICG). 2021. South Sudan’s Other War: Resolving the Insurgency in Equatoria. ICG Report No. 169. Brussels/Nairobi.

  4. 4.

    South Sudan studies show that the native ethnic groups in Yei and its surrounding areas are Kakwa, Baka, Pojulu, Keliko, Mündü, Avukaya, Lugbara, and Bari. However, other ethnic groups from other regions of the country moved to Yei Town at different times due to displacement by the civil war.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Peace & Conflict Studies Academic and Consultant, Peacebuilding, Conflict Transformation, and Preventive Diplomacy, Nairobi, Kenya

    Patrick Karanja Mbugua

  2. School of Social and Economic Studies, University of Juba, Juba, South Sudan

    Abraham K. Nyuon

Authors
  1. Patrick Karanja Mbugua
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  2. Abraham K. Nyuon
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Maseno University, Maseno, Kenya

    Susan M. Kilonzo

  2. University of Zimbabwe, Mount Pleasant, Zimbabwe

    Ezra Chitando

  3. University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Joram Tarusarira

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Mbugua, P.K., Nyuon, A.K. (2023). Building Resilience and Everyday Peace at the Micro-Levels in South Sudan. In: Kilonzo, S.M., Chitando, E., Tarusarira, J. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Religion, Peacebuilding, and Development in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36829-5_10

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