Social Science Research Council

The point of departure for the report, Darfur: Dimensions and Dilemmas of a Complex Situation, published by the Uppsala University Department of Peace and Conflict Research, is a field study conducted by the
author in Sudan during the fall of 2007. The purpose of this analysis is
to deepen knowledge about the current crisis in Darfur through [...]

Posted on behalf of AbdouMaliq Simone
The discussion that has taken place on this weblog over the last weeks concerning urbanization in the Sudan has raised many critical points to which I do not take issue. These discussions have provided incisive attention to how the complex and multiple historical trajectories—of movement, political mobilization, and economic [...]

Posted on behalf of Sean O’Fahey
War in Darfur and the Search for Peace is by far the best and most authoritative introduction to the Darfur crisis that I have read. But so fast-moving is the crisis, even since the publication of nthis book last year, that it is increasingly inaccurate to talk of [...]

To avoid the continuity of conflict over land and its resources in the Sudan, it should be constitutionally and legally confirmed that "land belongs to the community" and that "community land should not be sold." Community land for investment can be leased out and not sold out at all to outside users. For any investment [...]

Two new scholarly books help us understand how people in Sudan’s peripheries survive—or don’t—and place the frontierland governance in a deep historical context. One is Wendy James’s ethnography of the Uduk people of Blue Nile during the last two decades of war and flight, and the other is Martin Daly’s history of Darfur.
Wendy James’s three [...]

This last week I was in Kutum—the first time I have spent more than a day in the north Darfur town since November-December 1985. It was fascinating to be back in the district after a gap of 22 years. The physical landscape is unchanged. The gardens of Wadi Kutum are as beautiful as ever, almost [...]

It goes without saying that Sudanese scholars are the true experts on Darfur’s crisis. The short book edited by Abdel Ghaffar Mohammed Ahmed and Leif Manger, Understanding the Crisis in Darfur: Listening to Sudanese Voices, is an essential resource for those wishing to understand how Sudanese see the conflict and the possible resolution to it.

This posting is a guide to three online sources of scholarly material on Darfur (and Sudan in general) that provide different resources for the student or professor. The most comprehensive online resource on Sudan is the Rift Valley Institute’s Sudan Open Archive. The Center for African Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, hosts UnderstandingSudan.org, which is a resource specifically geared for teachers planning classes on Sudan including Darfur. Prof. R.S. O’Fahey, the premier historian of Darfur, has a website dedicated to his research in Darfur.