Go to AfricaBib home

Go to AfricaBib home AfricaBib Go to database home

bibliographic database
Line
Previous page New search

The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here

Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Social capital and civil war: the Dinka communities in Sudan's civil war
Author:Deng, Luka Biong
Year:2010
Periodical:African Affairs: The Journal of the Royal African Society (ISSN 1468-2621)
Volume:109
Issue:435
Pages:231-250
Language:English
Geographic terms:Sudan
South Sudan
Subjects:civil wars
Dinka
social networks
households
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/40785322
Abstract:It is generally assumed that violent conflict has a negative effect on social capital, and war zones are considered to be 'zones of social capital deficiency'. This article challenges this position, and attempts to develop a more nuanced understanding of the status of social capital in the context of Sudan's civil war. Social capital is here defined in terms of bonding and as the stock of reciprocal networks of trust and norms that are rooted in a traditional way of life. The article focuses on the Dinka of southern Sudan in the 1990s, paying attention to issues such as cattle ownership, kinship support, structure of households, traditional court settlements, marriage, social ties, and mutual labour assistance clubs. The empirical findings clearly question any simplistic assumption that conflict erodes social capital. While it is true that certain types of social capital have been a casualty of civil war, the opposite is the case in other communities. The article explains this difference by drawing a distinction between 'endogenous' and 'exogenous' counter-insurgency warfare. Communities in southern Sudan that were exposed to endogenous counter-insurgency warfare experienced a loss of social capital, but where exogenous violence dominated, there has been a deepening and strengthening of bonding social capital among and within communities. Notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract, edited]
Views
Cover