South Sudanese Refugees and Youth: Complex Narratives of Gender, War, and Diaspora
Humanities
CRES 190
This project focuses on the experiences of South Sudanese refugees and youth who have been relocated in the United States and are living in the diaspora. What this project does is document and analyze the experiences of South Sudanese refugees by centering the narratives and experiences of S.Sudanese women. In doing this project, the question that I attempt to answer and explore is how have the experiences of S.Sudanese women and female relatives directly informed and impacted the experiences of S.Sudanese youth and young adults that were both born in refugee camps and born in America, otherwise categorized as first generation. Often times, the history of South Sudan which is riddled with war, trauma, and poverty, precedes the history of the actual people and their cultures, experiences, and narratives that are not situated in and transcend violence and colonialism. Even then however, when discussing these experiences of war the voices and experiences of men have constantly been placed in the forefront and have been amplified which has unintentionally resulted in the muffling of the experiences of women- women were often faced with a number of responsibilities that affected them physically, emotionally, and mentally. The inability to recognize these impacts on S.Sudanese women has resulted in them not being provided with holistic support and resources upon resettlement. What this then results in is a fractured story of self for the S.Sudanese youth whose identity is directly informed by a history that they may not completely understand or comprehend. In order to remedy this failure and to understand the experiences of South Sudanese youth and young adults in the diaspora, the specific experiences of trauma, violence, and displacement through the voices of South Sudanese women are acknowledged to consequently reveal how their experiences have directly informed those of the youths and young adults in question. The timeline for documenting this narrative is structurally intentional to show how these narratives are dynamic and significant; these sections are as follows: pre war life, life in the refugee camps, and resettlement and life beyond the refugee camps.
