Speaking with a ‘soft voice’: professional and pragmatic civilities amongst South Sudanese NGO leaders

Alice Robinson

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: This article examines the forms of ‘civility’ promoted by South Sudanese NGO leaders and staff in their efforts to navigate a context of pervasive political repression. Drawing on in-depth, life-work history interviews, it shows how the careful cultivation of a ‘non-political’ identity was a way of securing space to operate in a highly militarised, politically restricted environment, of working across the divisions created by conflict, and of creating small spaces for change. The article also points to the limitations of these non-political positions, to the struggles of aspirational projects to overcome the inequalities in which they are embedded, and to the risk of reproducing the hierarchies and exclusions of the wider humanitarian industry. For external actors engaged in ‘localisation’ efforts, the discussion is a reminder that decisions about which organisations to fund are inherently political, with implications for dynamics of inequality and marginalisation in South Sudanese (civil) society.

Keywords: civility; NGOs; South Sudan; civil pragmatism; civil society (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 16 pages
Date: 2023-07-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mfd
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Published in Peacebuilding, 1, July, 2023, 11(3), pp. 257 - 272. ISSN: 2164-7259

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:118839

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