Paper details
| Paper authors | Alexander Riley |
| In panel on | Famine and Food Insecurity: New Trends and Systems or Politics as usual? |
| Paper presenter(s) will be presenting |
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Abstract
In recent years, there has been an increasing recognition of the importance of social capital and community coping networks in mitigating against severe hunger. Communities themselves are often the first responders to shocks, and the development of sharing networks in non-crisis times can spread risk during a food crisis. Nevertheless, further research needs to be conducted into how these community networks respond to and survive (or not) acute events such as armed conflict and climate shocks, and the potential longer-term consequences of an erosion of community level coping mechanisms.
In this paper, I will focus on chiefs’ courts and hunger courts in Leer County, South Sudan. Primary qualitative data collection, including focus group discussions (FGDs) and key informant interviews (KIIs), was undertaken in Leer County in June 2021 and July/August 2022. In Leer County, chiefs and prophets have historically played an important role on in upholding community sharing norms and coping networks. Nevertheless, over time the functionality of chiefs’ courts and hunger courts appears to have decreased sustainably due to a combination of i) mass displacement which has fragmented communities and power structures, ii) asset erosion through the waves of attacks targeting the community’s livelihoods and asset base, iii) an influx of arms which has diluted the power of the chiefs, and their ability to enforce claims through punitive action. These structural challenges call into question the ability of chiefs in Leer, and potentially other contexts of compounding, asset stripping shocks, to effectively address grievances within the community, and to provide a functioning and enforced safety net in times of severe hunger. Nevertheless, chiefs’ courts and, by extension, hunger courts, have been extremely resilient institutions that have not remained static in the face of the aforementioned challenges. As it has become harder and harder to enforce claims through the courts, many chiefs in Leer County have recently sought to tap into the spiritual authority of a local prophet named Tilling, essentially replacing the now devoid threat of asset confiscation with the threat of diving punishment.
