Past, present, and future FIFTY YEARS OF ANTHROPOLOGY IN SUDAN Munzoul A. M. Assal Musa Adam Abdul-Jalil Past, present, and future FIFTY YEARS OF ANTHROPOLOGY IN SUDAN Munzoul A. M. Assal Musa Adam Abdul-Jalil FIFTY YEARS OF ANTHROPOLOGY IN SUDAN: PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE Copyright © Chr. Michelsen Institute 2015. P.O. Box 6033 N-5892 Bergen Norway [email protected] Printed at Kai Hansen Trykkeri Kristiansand AS, Norway Cover photo: Liv Tønnessen Layout and design: Geir Årdal ISBN 978-82-8062-521-2 Contents Table of contents .............................................................................iii Notes on contributors ....................................................................vii Acknowledgements ...................................................................... xiii Preface ............................................................................................xv Chapter 1: Introduction Munzoul A. M. Assal and Musa Adam Abdul-Jalil ......................... 1 Chapter 2: The state of anthropology in the Sudan Abdel Ghaffar M. Ahmed .................................................................21 Chapter 3: Rethinking ethnicity: from Darfur to China and back—small events, big contexts Gunnar Haaland ........................................................................... 37 Chapter 4: Strategic movement: a key theme in Sudan anthropology Wendy James ................................................................................ 55 Chapter 5: Urbanisation and social change in the Sudan Fahima Zahir El-Sadaty ................................................................. 69 Chapter 6: Old Omdurman and national integration: the socio-historical roots of social exclusion Idris Salim El-Hassan ...................................................................... 81 Chapter 7: Anthropology and peacebuilding in Sudan— some reflections Gunnar M. Sørbø ........................................................................... 95 Chapter 8: The predicament of access to, and management of, resources in “globalised” Sudan. Some notes on Arab pastoralists in the Butana and Southern Kordofan Barbara Casciarri ........................................................................ 111 iii iv Chapter 9: Conflicts on the move—looking at the complexity of the so-called “resource based conflicts” in Western Sudan Leif Manger .................................................................................. 139 Chapter 10: A Sudanese anthropologist doing fieldwork in Norway: Some critical reflections Munzoul A. M. Assal ..................................................................... 163 Chapter 11: Pluralism and governance in Sudan: reflections on the local and national perspectives Ahmed Al-Shahi ........................................................................... 179 Chapter 12: Identity conflicts and culture concepts: Insights from Sudan Jay O’Brien ................................................................................... 191 Chapter 13: From native administration to native system: the reproduction of a colonial model of governance in post-independence Sudan Musa Adam Abdul-Jalil ............................................................... 223 Chapter 14: Anthropological studies on religion in Sudan Osman Mohamed Osman Ali .................................................... 235 Chapter 15: Gendering the politics of memory: Women, identity, and conflict in Sudan Sondra Hale ................................................................................. 247 Chapter 16: From “harmful traditions” to “pathologies of power”: Re-vamping the anthropology of health in Sudan Ellen Gruenbaum ........................................................................ 263 Chapter 17: Historical thinking in political discourses: the case of land issues in South Kordofan Enrico Ille ...................................................................................... 277 Chapter 18: Rethinking livelihoods in the Gezira Scheme: a study of the Al-Takala village Abdalla Mohamed Gasimelseed .............................................. 291 v vi FIFTY YEARS OF ANTHROPOLOGY IN SUDAN: PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE Notes on contributors Musa Adam Abdul-Jalil is Associate Professor of Social Anthropology and Deputy Dean for Academic Affairs at the Faculty of Economic and Social Studies at the University of Khartoum. His research and publications have focused on the areas of ethnicity, migration, customary law, customary land tenure, and traditional mechanisms for conflict manage- ment. His recent published works include: “Darfur Land Tenure Issues: Features, Problems, and Prospects for Sustainable Peace,” in Darfur’s political economy: a quest for development, edited by Hamid Eltigani Ali (London: Routledge, 2014), and “Nomad-Sedentary Relations in the Context of Dynamic Land Rights in Darfur: From Complementarity to Conflict,” in Disrupting territories, edited by Jörg Gertel, Richard Rottenburg, and Sandra Calkins (Suffolk: James Curry, 2014). Abdel Ghaffar M. Ahmed is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Khartoum, Professor in Development Studies at Ahfad University for Women, and affiliated Senior Researcher at Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI), Norway. His previous appointments include Director of the Economic and Social Research Council in Sudan (1976-1977), Dean of Juba University, South Sudan (1977-1978), Director of the Development Studies and Research Centre at the University of Khartoum, and Executive Secretary of OSSREA—the Organi- zation for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (1992-2002). Ahmed Al-Shahi (M.Litt. D.Phil. Oxon) is a Research Fellow and co-founder of the Sudanese Programme at St. Antony’s College, Oxford University. He taught social anthropology at the Universities of Khartoum and Newcastle and has conducted anthropological research among the Shaygiyya tribe of northern Sudan. Among his many publications on the Shaygiyya, Sudan and the Middle East are: The Arab World and North Africa, 1973; La Republique du Soudan, 1979; Wisdom from the Nile, 1978 (in collaboration with F.C.T. Moore); Themes from Northern Sudan, 1986; The Diversity of the Muslim Community: Anthropological Essays in memory of Peter Lienhardt, 1987; Islam in the Modern World, 1985, re-issued in 2013 (in collaboration with Denis MacEoin); Middle East and North African Immigrants in Europe 2005 (in collaboration with Richard Lawless). Osman Mohamed Osman Ali is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Faculty of Economic and Social Studies, University of Khartoum. His research interests include sociological and anthropological theory, methods of social research, community development and systems of belief, rural communities, Islamic and vii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Middle Eastern societies, and peace and conflict. In recent years, he was part of research projects on Shari’a in different African countries and roadside and travel communities in Africa (Sudan and Ghana). His most recent books include: Perusal and Verification in Ladislav Holy’s Book: Religion and Custom in a Muslim Society: The Berti of Sudan (in Arabic, 2013), and Theories of Sociology and Anthropology (in Arabic, 2013). Munzoul A. M. Assal is Professor of Social Anthropology and Deputy Director of the Peace Research Institute at the University of Khartoum. Prior to his current position he was the Director of Graduates Affairs Administration (2009-2012) at the same university. His research focuses on refugees, internally displaced persons, humanitarianism, and citizenship. His major publications include: Sticky labels or rich ambiguities? Diaspora and challenges of homemaking for Somalis and Sudanese in Norway (2004); Diaspora within and without Africa: homogeneity, heterogeneity, variation (2006 co-edited with Leif Manger); An annotated bibliography of social research on Darfur (2006); and Multi-dimensional changes in the Sudan 1989-2011: reshaping livelihoods, political conflicts and identities (2015 co-edited with Barbara Casciarri and François Ireton). Barbara Casciarri holds a PhD in Ethnology and Social Anthropology from the EHESS (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales) in Paris. She did fieldwork focusing on economic and political anthropology issues among pastoral Arab-speaking groups of Sudan (1989-2013) and on the relationship between Berber-speaking pastoralists and Arab-speaking farmers in South-Eastern Morocco (2000-2006). She has been the coordi- nator of the CEDEJ (Centre d’Etudes et Documentation Economique et Juridique) in Khar- toum between 2006 and 2009. Since 2004 she is Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology, University Paris 8 and researcher at the LAVUE-UMR 7218. She edited with A. M. Ahmed a special issue of Nomadic Peoples 13, 1 “Pastoralists under pressure in present-day Sudan” (2009) and with M. Van Aken a special issue of the Journal des anthropologues 132-133 “Anthropology and Water(s)” (2013). She has been the scientific coordinator of two ANR projects in Sudan: WAMAKHAIR (2008-2012) and ANDROMAUE (2011-2014), and since 2009 she is, together with M. Assal, the referee of the scientific agreement between the Faculty of Economic and Social Studies, UoK, and Paris 8 University. Idris Salim ElHassan is Associate Professor at the International University of Africa, Sudan. He obtained a BSc. and MSc. in anthropology from the University of Khartoum, and a PhD in anthropology from the University of Connecticut, USA. Formerly, he taught at