1 - Disrupting Territories: Commodification and its Consequences

Summary

On 9 July 2011, the world looked on as many Sudanese, hopeful and delirious with joy, danced in the streets of Juba celebrating the independence of the Republic of South Sudan. The day’s cheerful festivities stood out in a region that is regularly reported on in terms of dejection and gloominess. The drawing of international borders separating South Sudan from Sudan is the most dramatic of territorial reorganizations in the region. It has strong repercussions for people, but especially for those living in the immediate border regions. Uncertainty prevails as both Sudans look into the future.

The initially hopeful expectations have already been marred by renewed armed conflicts and warfare – between and within the two states. Many of these conflicts relate to struggles over the rights to land and its effective control: borders are being contested, territorial claims are being challenged, territorially-bound resources and the entitlements to agricultural land are being disputed. Disrupting Territories reveals the antagonistic configurations that put pressure on Sudanese communities, Land is immobile: for millions of people in Sudan, it serves as a reference for the formation of identity and constitutes their most important means of livelihood. But drought, hunger and armed conflicts have displaced millions of people from their land. In combination with the establishment of resource-extracting economies – namely, the new dynamics of land grab, the search for gold, oil and other minerals – this contributes to what we call ‘disrupting territories’: the dissolution of the fundamental relationships between man and land, related to the process of commodification.

Against the backdrop of critical moments, such as the foundation of two new states, the recent political upheaval in North Africa as well as the global financial and food crises, we investigate the incremental and deeply penetrating structural transformations in the interconnections between society and territory. We focus on the relationship between man, land, and human security. Disrupting Territories juxtaposes placebased livelihood systems and articulations of attachment with the commodification and privatization of land. This conversation does not limit itself to describing the territorial impacts of global capital on Sudanese localities or modes of earning a living. Rather, it seeks to disentangle some of the complex assemblages of land, identity, and human security, which have been historically precipitated in various institutions that people experience, perpetuate, negotiate and contest.