“They consider themselves very different”: Disparate dreams of Zande governance across the South Sudan-Central African Republic borderland

Abstract

This article unpacks the different trajectories of a once-unified Zande people through a focus on their respective positions in the nation-states of South Sudan and the Central African Republic (CAR). While the Zande people live at the margins of their states in both countries, South Sudan’s Azande are numerous enough to carry political clout. More importantly, South Sudan’s status as a newly independent state made it open to opposition and contest, inviting dreams of alternative forms of governance and authority. In the CAR, the state has mostly remained an elusive dream, hardly offering inspiration for governance alternatives that build on the heroic histories of the once powerful Zande kingdoms. Drawing on recent histories, we show how cross-border experience of violence by the Lord’s Resistance Army and subsequent military intervention briefly brought the Azande together again, but ultimately made difference more visible and acute.