Abstract
One of the challenges of diaspora framing is the distance it imposes between those “at home” and those “out there”. However, while physical distance cannot be ignored, mentally many migrants live contemporaneously in multiple locations, enabled by fluid boundaries and ever easier communication across continents. This creates an experience of “everyday transnationality” for those connected to these thick webs of connection and support, webs that are hard for those outside of them to appreciate. These networks enmeshing friends, family and communities are placed under pressure—and thrown into question—during major events, especially conflicts or emergencies. South Sudan’s global diaspora networks have been built by, transformed through, and strained under decades of civil wars and conflict-induced disasters, the most recent wave of which began in 2013 just two years after the country achieved independence. Between 2018 and 2020, the Rift Valley Institute undertook collaborative research with Juba and Monash Universities to explore the impact of the conflict on families in Juba, across South Sudan’s boundaries and in Melbourne’s suburbs. The Diaspora Impacts Project (DIP 1 and DIP 2) explored how the conflict (and concomitant economic crisis) significantly increased regional demand for diaspora personal and financial support and also how it re-politicised kinship systems and personal actions, placing social and familial networks under considerable strain.
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Notes
- 1.
Riek Machar is currently the 1st Vice-President of South Sudan and has been in similar posts since the formation of the Government of Southern Sudan in 2005. He has been a figurehead for the Nuer-speaking peoples of South Sudan since the 1990s, whether leading various iterations of armed groups or in government positions.
- 2.
A recent example is fund raising by a group of Tonj women in Melbourne to build a clinic in their homeland (SBS, 2019).
- 3.
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Maher, S., Kindersley, N., Carver, F., Deng, S.A. (2022). South Sudanese Australians: Transnational Kinship During Conflict and Economic Crisis. In: Phillips, M., Olliff, L. (eds) Understanding Diaspora Development. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97866-2_8
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