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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Aid and Complicity: The Case of War-Displaced Southerners in the Northern Sudan
Author:Duffield, MarkISNI
Year:2002
Periodical:Journal of Modern African Studies
Volume:40
Issue:1
Period:March
Pages:83-104
Language:English
Geographic term:Sudan
Subjects:political repression
displaced persons
humanitarian assistance
Economics and Trade
Politics and Government
international relations
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
nationalism
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/3876082
Abstract:This paper is concerned with the unintended consequences of aid as a relation of governance, that is, as encompassing a series of interventions and strategies employed by aid organizations that have the power to reorder the relationship between people and things. It deals in particular with the failure of aid agencies to improve the lot of displaced Southerners living in North Sudan after more than a decade of engagement. The paper focuses on displaced Southerners in the transition zone of South Darfur, most of whom are Dinka from the Mulwal clan originating from northern Bahr el Ghazal. The paper argues that aid, as a governance relation, is complicit with wider forms of oppression to which Southerners are subject. The aid-based IDP (Internally Displaced Person) identity, for example, resonates with State forms of deculturation. At the same time, development ideas of self-sufficiency articulate with the commercial need for cheap agricultural labour. Development strategies have tended to reinforce the subordination of displaced Southerners rather than enhancing their autonomy. Examples of this collateral effect are examined in relation to sharecropping, food aid, debt and asset stripping. The paper questions whether aid as a technology of governance can ever be an adequate vehicle for a common humanity and a shared duty of care. Bibliogr., notes, sum.
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