2026

Symposium and Annual General Meeting (AGM)

This year’s symposium will take place on Saturday 21 November 2026 at SOAS.

Tickets are available now on Eventbrite!

09:15-10:00 Registration
10:00-10:10 Welcome and Moment of Silence: SSSUK Chairperson Aziz Elnur
10:10-11:10 Session 1: History, Governance and Resources
Roman Deckert, History of German Sudanese Relations

The role of Germany in the trajectory of Sudan's modern history was substantial yet has been largely overlooked by Sudan Academia due to the language barrier. Through trans-imperial deals, the Reich was a key supporter of the British ambitions to set up the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium. Independent Sudan became the very first test case for West Germany's Hallstein Doctrine to prevent East Germany from gaining diplomatic recognition in the decolonising world. Massive aid programmes for the Sudanese Army, intelligence services and police effectively translated into a proxy war between the two German states during the "Cold War" which was a hot one in the Horn of Africa. Today's militarisation of Sudan's political marketplace is therefore to a considerable extent a legacy of German militarism and of Nazism in particular.

Matai Muon, ‘The State’ Waiting and Everyday Governance in Unity Oilfields

This intervention (part of an ongoing doctoral work) discusses how communities and institutions living in Unity State’s oilfields experience and interpret the South Sudanese state through everyday encounters with oil governance. It shows how oil extraction informs local political authority, social expectations, and economic opportunity while the institutions that govern it often appear fragmented, distant, and difficult to locate.

Discussion and Questions

11:10-12:10 Panel: Technology, Ethics and Human Rights - Chaired by Salma Daoud
Asil Sidahmed and Alex Darby, Digital Rights and Justice

Sudan's December revolution and the civilian-led transition that followed (2019 to 2021) were recorded largely online, in social media posts, messaging groups, songs, articles and images. Since the outbreak of war in April 2023, much of this born-digital record has been lost to deletion, platform decay, censorship and displacement, while the warring parties compete to redefine what the revolution meant. This talk introduces the Sudan Digital Archive, an open-source, bilingual (Arabic and English) platform built since November 2024 by a small Sudanese-led collective to preserve the civilian record of this period, including civilian voices during the ongoing counter revolutionary war. We describe how the archive works in practice, from capturing websites and video to building early collections of revolutionary songs and the writing of Sudanese scholars and activists. We then turn to the ethical questions it raises: consent, contributor safety, the trauma-informed handling of sensitive material, and who decides what is remembered. We close by distinguishing civic and cultural memory from evidentiary documentation for accountability, and by inviting the Sudan studies community to contribute to and use the archive.

Susanne Jaspars and Tamer Abd Elkreem, Sudan's Digital Paradox

This presentation will cover the key findings of a 3-year ESRC-funded project on the political, economic, and food security effects of digitalising food assistance. Research was conducted in collaboration with University of Khartoum/CEDEJ Khartoum, and with researchers in Sudan in five states varyingly affected by war. Digitalised food assistance in Sudan presents an extreme case of digitalisation as lifesaving, with Sudanese themselves playing a key role with digital financial transfers. At the same time, it has been used as a tool for power and control, and weaponised through internet shutdowns. It feeds into inequal power relations and a violent, extractive political economy by excluding some of the most marginalised and functioning as a tool for economic and political gain.

Discussion and Questions

12:10-13:15 Lunch

13:15-14:00 SSSUK Annual General Meeting
Non-members are welcome to attend but may not vote

14:00-15:00 Panel: Diaspora, Exile and Psychological Impact
Janice Boddy and Ellen Gruenbaum, Sudanese Anthropology in Exile. Report from Cairo

In early 2026 Janice Boddy and Ellen Gruenbaum visited Sudanese anthropologists and related families in Cairo, all driven out of Sudan by war. In a country famous for the early studies by British anthropologists (such as Lienhardt, Evans-Pritchard, Seligman & Seligman, and later Reining, Cunnison, Asad, and many others), it was the University of Khartoum, Sudan, that had the oldest Anthropology Department in Africa (founded in 1958). The U of K generated a strong cohort of Sudanese ethnographers, educators, and practitioners (Abdal Ghaffar Mohamed Ahmed, Samia Elnager, Munzoul Assal, Musa Adam, Salah Shazali, Idris Salim Elhassan, Balghis Badri, and others), influencing the development of several institutions of higher education, including Ahfad University for Women in Omdurman. Boddy and Gruenbaum's report offers insight into the exiles’ experiences, strategies for survival and well-being for their families, and their efforts to preserve academic survival for their ruined universities, their students, and their work.

Vicky Ladu, Understanding Conflict-Related Trauma in the UK Diaspor

This presentation explores how members of the South Sudanese diaspora in the UK make sense of conflict-related trauma and cope with its impact across migration and resettlement. Drawing on Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), it highlights key themes shared across participants' experiences, whilst considering generational differences and other demographic factors. Findings highlight the role of purpose, faith, relationships, cultural identity and hope in meaning-making. The findings have implications for culturally responsive mental health care and community-led approaches to supporting wellbeing and recovery.

Discussion and Questions

15:00-15:30 Tea and Coffee

15:30-16:30 Panel: Heritage and Social Capital
Dr Ismail Hamid Mohamed Elnour, Impact of War on Heritage

This talk examines how heritage has become both a target and a weapon in Sudan's current conflict. It traces the colonial and postcolonial roots of Sudan's identity fragmentation, then turns to the deliberate targeting of museums, archives, and shrines—alongside the destruction of intangible heritage such as oral traditions, genealogies, and sacred sites— as instruments of cultural erasure. Drawing on cases from Khartoum, El Geneina, and El Fasher, the session explores how competing historical narratives, memory politics, and collective trauma are being mobilised and instrumentalised in the war, and closes with reflections on theory, method, and implications for heritage protection beyond Sudan.

Prof. Mekki Medani El Shibly, Community Peace Carrier: the civil capital forged by war

The presentation introduces the concept of the “Community Peace Carrier” as a locally rooted social constituency capable of carrying peace beyond elite political agreements. It argues that sustainable peace in Sudan requires rebuilding trust and social cohesion from below and connecting community-based peace initiatives with an inclusive civilian process of state reconstruction.

Discussion and Questions

16:30-16:55 Dr Bacete Bwogo and Nile Star Music World

16:55- 17:00 Closing Remarks: SSSUK Chairperson Aziz Elnur

Venue: Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), Thornhaugh Street (off Russell Square), London WC1H 0XG.

The Symposium is open to all so please spread the word! The AGM is also open to all to attend, but only members may vote.

Speaker biographies

Roman Deckert is a Geneva-based analyst and journalist. He first went to Sudan in 1997 as a trainee at the “Mahad Jota“ (Goethe-Institut) in Khartoum, while studying History in Bochum, Germany. His research focus is the history of German-Sudanese relations but he is also the main author of the Wikipedia article on the Greeks of Sudan. Since 2009, he has worked for the Berlin non-governmental organisation Media in Cooperation and Transition (MiCT).

Matai Muon is a Doctoral Researcher at the Oxford Department of International Development, Oxford. University. His research explores the political economy of oil in Unity State, South Sudan, analysing how communities and state institutions grapple with governance questions amid historical marginalisation and oil-driven development. He completed an MPhil in Development Studies at ODID on national oil policy and local regulations in South Sudan. He has also worked as a consultant on development and humanitarian policy in the Horn of Africa war economies.

Asil Sidahmed is a London-based researcher and writer, and co-leader and Principal Investigator of the Sudan Digital Archive.  During Sudan's transitional period of 2019-21, she was Strategic Advisor to the Health Minister.  Her work spans humanitarian policy, conflict analysis, health governance and digital rights, and she is now a Senior Peacebuilding Consultant on the Yemen Peace Programme, Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies.  She is a Fellow in Political Technology at Newspeak House, London, and holds an MPhil in international development, Oxford University.

Alexander Darby is a software engineer and cybersecurity specialist, and is technical lead at the Sudan Digital Archive. He designed and built its database, web-archiving pipeline and security model, and leads the integration of volunteer engineers.

Susanne Jaspars researches the political dynamics of food in situations of conflict, famine and humanitarian crisis.  She has worked as a practitioner and researcher in Sudan since 1988 and now leads the project on which she is presenting, which includes India and the UK as case studies, as well as Sudan. 

Tamer Abd Elkreem lectures at the Sociology and Social Anthropology Department, and is Deputy Director of Peace Research, Khartoum University.  He also works on a UK Economic and Social Research Council project and the Sudan-Norway Academic Collaboration project.  His research focuses on power relations in development, the anthropology of the post-colonial state, on mega-development projects and on development practice in Sudan.

Vicky Ladu, from South Sudan, is completing a doctorate in Clinical Psychology and works within NHS mental health services, supporting people with a range of difficulties. Her clinical work and research are united by a strong interest in trauma, resilience and culturally responsive psychological practice.

Janice Boddy and Ellen Gruenbaum are North American anthropologists, respectively Professor Emerita at the University of Toronto, Canada, and Purdue University, USA. They began their research projects in Sudan in the mid-1970s and continue up to the present.

Professor Mekki Medani El Shibly is a Sudanese economist and policy specialist with extensive experience in development economics, international finance, institutional reform and economic governance in Africa and the Arab region. He is an Honorary Research Associate at SOAS, University of London. His current research focuses on Sudan’s political economy, post-war reconstruction, state-building, economic reform, and the relationship between peace, institutions and development.

Ismail Hamid Mohamed Elnour is a heritage specialist, with a PhD from Birmingham University on the intangible cultural heritage of the Napatan region and Gebel el Barkal. He is a consultant for the UNESCO World Heritage Centre and Founder of the Sudan Safe Passages Initiative and the Sudan Heritage Protection Initiative, aimed at mobilising Sudanese at home and abroad to support people through the war and to protect cultural heritage from destruction and illicit trafficking.