704. Peoples & Cultures of Two Sudans
John Ryle
Whether Sudan is considered as one country or two, cultural diversity
and ethnic complexity are among its most immediately striking features.
Between them, the republics of Sudan and South Sudan are host to two
world religions, myriad local belief systems and hundreds of indigenous
languages (rivalling Africa’s most polyglot nations, Nigeria, Cameroon
and the Democratic Republic of Congo). The modes of livelihood of
contemporary Sudanese range from the daily commute of the urban
middle-class in the expanding suburbs of Khartoum to the long-range
migrations of camel pastoralists in the arid lands of eastern Sudan. They
include the deal-making of merchants and itinerant street-traders in
urban centres from Wadi Halfa to Juba, the field labour of tenant-farmers
in the Gezira, the seasonal movement of cattle keepers in the swamps and
savannahs of Bahr al-Ghazal, and the domestic cultivations of Equatorian
forest-dwellers.
Ethnic groups in Sudan are numerous; and individual and group identi-
ties have multiple aspects. Sudanese people differentiate themselves – or
have been differentiated by others – using a range of overlapping criteria:
lines of descent from a single ancestor, a common language or place
of origin, mode of livelihood, physical characteristics, and political or
religious affiliation. The resulting categories may appear to perpetuate
difference, but they also enable its opposite: the ordering of relations
of exchange and cooperation between communities. Ethnic and other
categories change and crosscut one another, reflecting shared histories.
Sudan’s inhabitants have been progressively linked together over centu-
ries by patterns of trade and migration, and by an emerging politicalThe Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors economy^ that^ has^ changed^ their^ relations^ to^ state^ power^ and^ to^ each^
(www.riftvalley.net).