Rural Labour Regimes in North Kordofan: Work, Family, and Categorical Violence in Sudan

Kato, Hisae

Abstract

This thesis, grounded in primary research conducted in North Kordofan, Sudan, examines how Sudan’s rural labour regimes perpetuate and regenerate violence through what it introduces as ‘categorical violence’. This framework explores how classifications embedded in social networks—such as race, gender, ethnicity, and religion—determine who can access work, under what conditions, and how various types of labour are valued or overlooked. The findings reveal that these entrenched categories, upheld by historical and power structures, do more than define labour opportunities; they embed inequalities that reinforce socio-economic hierarchies and sustain exclusion and exploitation. Through a socio-political and historical analysis, this study examines the social meanings and classifications assigned to everyday work, including the often-invisible contributions of social reproductive labour. It explores access to work as shaped by mechanisms involving family, state, and citizenship. These analyses reveal that labour classification, valuation, and access are mediated in ways that perpetuate patriarchy and reinforce racial, gender, and ethnic hierarchies. Rooted in networks of kinship, political, and social affiliations, family emerges as a pivotal institution shaping labour roles, facilitating job access, and, in the name of ‘family’ or ‘love’, simultaneously sustaining and regenerating restrictive social structures that limit opportunities and perpetuate exclusion. This layered analysis uncovers the complex and nuanced ways in which labour opportunities, classifications, and valuations of everyday work are navigated in Sudan’s rural labour regimes. The research also critiques donor-funded peacebuilding initiatives centred on employment generation projects using vocational training. It shows that donor agencies, by uncritically depending on national labour data assessments, narrowing their focus to skills-based interventions founded on flawed understandings of violence, and aligning with the Islamist government’s interests, have inadvertently bolstered existing power imbalances. Rather than reaching the most vulnerable, these programmes have often failed to adapt to Sudan's complex labour realities, reflecting limited understanding of the local socio-political context and institutional blindness due to a lack of reflective positionality. Ultimately, this thesis offers a fresh perspective on violence, on work and labour, and on the connections between them, challenging simplified employment categories and narrow views on work access. It reveals how development agencies’ institutional dynamics shape these structures, highlighting the visible and hidden forms of violence that sustain inequality and marginalisation within rural labour regimes.

Citation

Kato, H. Rural Labour Regimes in North Kordofan: Work, Family, and Categorical Violence in Sudan. (Thesis). SOAS University of London

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Dec 13, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 13, 2024
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.25501/SOAS.00043106
• Additional Information: Number of Pages : 395
• Award Date: Jan 1, 2024