The South Sudan House in Amarat: South Sudanese enclaves in Khartoum

This article presents our first reflections and impressions on two separate ethnographic fieldworks carried out between 2015 and 2016, and offers insights into a particular enclave of South Sudan in a Khartoum neighbourhood, Amarat. It discusses the wider issues that have emerged as a result of the separation of the two Sudans. In July 2011, South Sudan became an independent nation, and broke away from Northern Sudan. The break-up was a violent experience for the people of the two nations, and the dynamic changes that followed the separation of the two Sudans have affected the lives of people from the north and the south, as well as those who are considered to be ‘Jenubeen’ (Southern or South Sudanese) in the north and those who are considered to be ‘Shageen’ (Northern) in the south. With the political developments in the two nations and the introduction of new citizenship laws, Southerners have become foreigners in Sudan, while Northerners have lost their citizenship privileges in South Sudan1. These political changes have had a profound impact on social, political, and economic reconfigurations, as well as on identity claims in the two nations.