National Languages for Peace in Conflict-Affected South Sudan

• In Event: Roundtable Session 8
  In Refereed Roundtable Session: Language and literacy: the role of heritage language and family for education, policy and peace

Proposal

Djité (2008), in his book examining the role of African languages in development in Africa, wrote that, “Everything is nothing without language in education” (p. 78), to argue that without careful attention to language-in-education policies in multilingual Africa, education would fail to contribute to the development of the continent. At the same time, development, as defined by the Sustainable Development Goals (United Nations, n.d.) in Africa is being held back by armed conflict (Selenica & Novelli, 2020). The South Sudanese people, citizens of the world’s newest country, have been victims of armed conflict for over five decades. Most recently, the country has been mired in a civil war that broke out on the streets of the capital city, Juba, in 2013, just two years after gaining independence through a protracted armed conflict with Sudan. This renewed war continues up to today. The costs of the current conflict are staggering. Estimates put the South Sudanese death toll at nearly half a million lives, with the costs to the economy at over USD $158 billion, and further costs of humanitarian assistance and peacekeeping from the international community are estimated to be over USD $30 billion (Kuol, 2020).
The costs of the conflict on the educational opportunities for South Sudan’s children are even greater (Mayai, 2022). In 2018, before the Covid-19 pandemic forced children around the world out of school, 2.2 million children were out of school in South Sudan due to the effects of armed conflict, the highest rate of out of school children in the world (UNESCO, 2018). In situations of conflict, the role of the international community and non-state actors in education is amplified (Burde et al., 2017; Mundy & Dryden-Peterson, 2011; Novelli & Lopes Cardozo, 2008), and the influence of global norms as set out in frameworks such as the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) Minimum Standards is significant (Bromley & Andina, 2010). This paper builds on Djité’s (2008) assertion of the importance of language in education issues and existing literature on education in conflict to explore the question of, “What role do languages-in-education play in conflict-affected South Sudan?”, a country where almost all education provision is funded or implemented by non-state actors (Mwaniki, 2021).
Using a decolonial lens and a framework that views humanitarian, development and peace building actions as intersectional, I argue that an increased use of Indigenous languages in conflict-affected South Sudan has potential to improve the quality of education, increase psycho-social supports to children affected by conflict, and is a basic human right for South Sudan’s children, all of whom are users of Indigenous languages. The paper concludes with recommendations for policy makers, donors, and other non-state actors in the humanitarian sector on how they can leverage the resource of South Sudan’s Indigenous languages to “do no harm,” involve communities and contribute to sustainable development and peacebuilding in South Sudan, regardless of where they fall on the digital divide.

Author

• Tanya Spronk, SIL