Brothers, Arrivals, Refugees. South Sudanese as Subjects of Naming and Reporting Practices in Sudan’s Humanitarian Sector

Abstract

When South Sudanese started to enter Sudanese territory after the outbreak of war in December 2013, they found themselves put into an uncertain gray area of definition. Lingering between aggressive rhetoric of Sudanese officials before the separation in July 2011 and the nominal bilateral agreement on four freedoms in September 2012, they were denied official refugee status until August 2016. This gap between their de facto and their de jure status added to their uncertainty and confronted humanitarian organizations with a number of intertwined semantic and logistic dilemmas. This article discusses how these dilemmas were experienced in northern Sudanese non-governmental organizations during the months leading up to August 2016. It illustrates how the organizations’ positioning towards South Sudanese refugees reflects asymmetries in the humanitarian sector as much as the consequences of ongoing attempts to increase governmental control over it. The case study thus highlights how losing rights as citizens and not gaining rights as refugees after crossing borders is enhanced when it overlaps with the neglect of individuals’ agency by their being simplified through quantification into a logistical problem. This points towards a need to complement humanitarian knowledge production with refugees’ own practices of support and connection, as well as emic notions of belonging.