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Orality and the poetics of forgiveness in South Sudan

Impey, Angela

Authors



Contributors

Julian Fifer
Editor

Angela Impey
Editor

Peter G. Kirchschlaeger
Editor

Manfred Nowak
Editor

George Ulrich
Editor

Abstract

South Sudan is the newest country in Africa. Half a century of almost continuous civil war with Sudan – in which approximately 2.5 million people were killed and over 4 million people displaced. Weak institutional capacity and extensive government corruption have deepened dependence on international aid, which attempts to compensate for vast infrastructural gaps across a range of sectors: food, health, water, sanitation, education, governance, and the struggle for peace and security. As songs in South Sudan’s Nilotic pastoralist cultures are a key platform for oral histories and truth-telling – and are often invested with greater moral force than other forms of oratory. South Sudanese legal scholars John Makec and Wal Duany draw attention, respectively, to the moral authority carried by songs in Dinka and Nuer customary law, describing their role in civil hearings in facilitating a dynamic inter-animation between disclosure, listening, and conciliation.

Citation

Impey, A. (2022). Orality and the poetics of forgiveness in South Sudan. In J. Fifer, A. Impey, P. G. Kirchschlaeger, M. Nowak, & G. Ulrich (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Music and Human Rights (127-139). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003043478-11

Publication Date May 1, 2022
Deposit Date Mar 15, 2021
Publisher Routledge
Pages 127-139
Series Title Routledge Companion Series and SOAS Studies in Music
Book Title The Routledge Companion to Music and Human Rights
ISBN 9780367489090
DOI https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003043478-11