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Historicizing Race, Ethnicity, and the Crisis of Citizenship in Sudan and South Sudan
- The Middle East Journal
- Middle East Institute
- Volume 73, Number 4, Winter 2019
- pp. 591-604
- Article
- Additional Information
Abstract:
This article critically outlines the discursive construction of racial and ethnic identities in Sudan and South Sudan, arguing its legacy is essential to understand the entanglement of state-formation, nationalism, citizenship, and political violence in both countries. Race and ethnicity were central to the colonial, nationalist, and postcolonial projects of inventing the "North" and the "South" as self-contained entities, and the politicization of race and ethnicity after independence is largely a product of "Orientalizing" cultural differences through colonial administrative rules and postcolonial policies.