ESSAYS etc.

Below is a list of the pieces I have published in the last decade, encompassing essays, fiction, journalism, and reports, amongst other things.

First, some favourites of mine…

… and here is a full list of pieces, organised by year:

2024

Living with Lobong: Power, Gold, and the UPDF in Eastern Equatoria. A Report for Small Arms Survey on the situation in Eastern Equatoria, South Sudan. 27 November.

Africa abandoned: Trump’s policy for the continent. Short dispatch for the New York Review of Books online on the likely character of US Africa policy under the orange man. 17 November.

The kingdom, the witch, and the general. A long anthropology essay in HAU on witchcraft, the state, Evans-Pritchard, and the Azande of South Sudan. 15 November.

Redaction: Sketch for a Self-Analysis. A long essay on redaction and journalism, published in Redacted: Writing in the Negative Space of the State (Punctum Books), edited by Lise Min, Franck Billé, Charlene Mackley. 28 October.

Taxonomies of Hunger. A long essay in the New Left Review on the history of famine in the 21st century. 25 September.

From petrodollars to licenses: South Sudan’s post-oil political economy. An academic essay on decarbonization in South Sudan. Environment and Security. 10 August.

Rule by militia. A long essay on the rise of militias and what it means for the nation-state system. Boston Review. 26 June.

Sudan Starves. A long essay on the political history of hunger in Sudan. Written with Kholood Khair and Raga Makawi. New York Review of Books online. 23 June. This essay is also available in Arabic here.

Dominance without Legitimacy: Tong Akeen Ngor’s Reign in Northern Bahr el Ghazal State. A report on the situation in Northern Bahr el Ghazal state, South Sudan. 13 June.

Darfur: The New Massacres. An essay on the conflict in Darfur, Sudan. Written with Jérôme Tubiana. New York Review of Books online. 10 February.

Playing Angry Birds with an Exiled Rebel. A reportage about briefcase rebels, the contradictions of war, and the dubious delights of Angry Birds. The Dial. 6 February.

2023

The Remains of the JPA: The Unlearnt Lessons of the Juba Peace Agreement. A report I co-write with Kholood Khair for the Rift Valley Institute. 30 November. Small Arms Survey. 13 November.

Combined and Uneven Catastrophe. An interview with Kareem Rabie about the situation on the West Bank, The Baffler. 21 November.

The Angel’s Dilemma. A long essay in The Baffler on the history and present of humanitarianism. 7 November.

Must Something Be Done? In the same issue of The Baffler, I wrote the initial polemical provocation for a symposium on humanitarianism, with responses from Michael Barnett, Alex de Waal, Musab Younis, Miriam Ticktin, and Hong (Stella) Zhang. 7 November.

Manhiem’s Mission: Power and Violence in Warrap State. A paper with Small Arms Survey on the politics of Warrap state, South Sudan. 30 October.

Prelude to a coup. A long essay in n+1 magazine on revolution and counterrevolution in Sudan. 26 October.

Jemma’s War: Political Strife in Western Equatoria. A paper with Small Arms Survey on the ethnicization of politics in Western Equatoria, South Sudan. 17 October.

Pay Day Loans and Backroom Empires: South Sudan’s Political Economy since 2018. A paper with Small Arms Survey on South Sudan’s political economy. 3 October.

All Alone in the Governor’s Mansion: Sarah Cleto’s Travails in Western Bahr el Ghazal. An essay on political dynamics in Western Bahr el Ghazal, South Sudan, for Small Arms Survey. 4 September.

The Body Count: Controlling Populations in Unity State. An essay for Small Arms Survey on the political uses of populations in Unity State, South Sudan. 21 August.

Only You Can Save Darfur. An essay for Jacobin magazine on what we can learn from the misadventures of the ‘Save Darfur’ coalition, almost twenty years after it was created. 28 July.

Attacked from Both Sides: Abyei’s Existential Dilemma. A report for Small Arms Survey on the situation in Abyei, a contested territory on the Sudan-South Sudan border. 13 July.

After Solidarity. A short essay for the New Left Review’s Sidecar on the cinema of the Dardenne brothers. 18 May.

A Pause not a Peace: Conflict in Jonglei and the GPAA. A report I wrote for Small Arms Survey on the situation in Jonglei, South Sudan, 16 May.

The Deported. A long reportage in The Baffler telling the story of Duol Tut Jock, a man America deported from his home in Nebraska to a country in which he had never set foot. 9 May.

Learning to Look: Berger’s Lessons. A long essay on my life with John Berger. Critical Quarterly. Volume 65, Issue 1. 27 April.

Gunshots in Khartoum. A short essay on the ongoing strife in Sudan. At the New Left Review’s Sidecar. 17 April.

Making Markets: South Sudan’s War Economy in the 21st Century. A paper I wrote for Tuft’s World Peace Foundation on the political economy of South Sudan after decarbonisation. 5 April.

Upper Nile Prepares to Return to War. A report I wrote for Small Arms Survey on the situation in Upper Nile, South Sudan. 23 March.

2022

'And Everything Became War': Warrap State since the Signing of the R-ARCSS. A long research report on conflict in Warrap state, South Sudan, written for Small Arms Survey. 23 December.

The Periphery Cannot Hold: Upper Nile since the Signing of the R-ARCSS. A long research report on the situation in Upper Nile, South Sudan, written for Small Arms Survey. 15 November.

Redaction as Symptom. An essay I wrote for ASAP/Journal on redactions, Weber, the Mueller report, the war on terror, and technocracy. 3 October.

Aid sector sex abuse: A common occurrence with reoccurring themes. A follow-up analysis to our long-form investigation of sexual exploitation allegations against humanitarians in Malakal, South Sudan, written with Sam Mednick, for The New Humanitarian. 22 September.

Sex abuse allegations against aid workers in South Sudan UN camp. A long-form investigation for The New Humanitarian/Al Jazeera on sexual exploitation allegations against humanitarians in Malakal, South Sudan, written with Sam Mednick. 22 September.

Why humanitarians should stop hiding behind impartiality. A piece with Alicia Luedke in The New Humanitarian on why impartiality is a bad principle for humanitarianism. 22 August.

Hard to be a God. A review in The Baffler of Anna Della Subin’s book Accidental Gods: On Men Unwittingly Turned Divine. 4 August.

Macron Isn’t Really Withdrawing From West Africa. A short piece in Jacobin on French military policy in West Africa. 7 June.

War by Another Name. An essay in The Baffler on sanctions, past and present. 9 May.

Colonial Nostalgia Continues to Define France’s Relationship to Africa. A short essay for Jacobin looking at France’s relationship with Africa and the persistence of Françafrique. 9 April.

How South Sudan’s peace process became a motor for violence. An article looking at the way the state produces violence in South Sudan. New Humanitarian. 3 February.

When Peace Produces War. A special report for the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies looking at the peace agreement in South Sudan. 1 February.

Meeting the General. A radio dispatch I recorded for ‘From Our Own Correspondent’ on BBC Radio 4. Broadcast on the Radio 4 edition of the show, 8 January. (My section begins at 17:54 in the episode).

Christmas in Pariang. An epistolary reportage, written to Jérôme Tubiana, about a war-time Christmas in Pariang, the place of the researcher in conflict, and the nature of friendship. Mouse Magazine. 6 January.

Death by Peace: How South Sudan’s Peace Agreement Ate The Grassroots. A long essay written with Ferenc Dávid Markó on how the South Sudanese peace agreement has largely destroyed whatever popular legitimacy the South Sudanese political system once had. African Arguments. 6 January.

Why the return of displaced people is such a thorny issue in South Sudan. A short piece of journalism looking at refugee returns and IDP displacement against the background of ongoing population engineering. New Humanitarian. 5 January.

2021

Don’t apply here: Why NGO hiring practices are sparking protests in South Sudan. Short piece of journalism on youth protests against humanitarian hiring practices in South Sudan. New Humanitarian. 7 December.

Give Peace a Chance. An essay on the liberal dreams of peacebuilding. The Baffler online. 11 November. There is a French translation of the essay at Afrique XXI (10 December).

The Photographer’s Dilemma. An essay on the war photography of Peter van Agtmael. The Baffler. 7 September.

The War They Call Peace. An essay on the ten-year anniversary of South Sudanese independence. Sidecar. 9 July.

Knowledge Will Not Save Us. A long essay on South Sudan, expertise, and the ethics of responsibility. n+1. 22 March.

Understanding Humanitarian Access and the Protection of Civilians in an era of depoliticized war was published with Geneva Call in March 2021, and looks at the politics of humanitarianism in South Sudan.

Cairo is a Knife. An essay about migration, fuul, and the invisibility of pain. Hotel Amerika. 6 March.

The Shirt Exception. A short story about domestic space and silence. Passengers Journal. 1 January.

2020

Why Biden shouldn't extend an olive branch to Republicans. An op-ed I wrote with Ainsley LeSure for the Guardian on why the Democrats should stop trying to placate that mythical beast, the moderate Republican. 26 November.

Hidden Enemies: An American History of Taqiyya. An essay I wrote for Cabinet magazine’s Kiosk on the enduring legacy of the paranoia of the war on terror. 29 October.

The World Needs a New Refugee Convention. An essay I wrote with Jérôme Tubiana for Foreign Policy on the past, present, and future of asylum and the 1951 refugee convention. 11 October.

A Fantasy of Finality: The UN Impasse at the Protection of Civilian Sites in South Sudan. A short piece on the UN’s decision to withdraw protection from the Protection of Civilians Sites in South Sudan. Written with Naomi Pendle. African Arguments. 23 September.

The Politics of Numbers: On Security Sector Reform in South Sudan 2005-2020. A long research report on the political economy of South Sudan, for the London School of Economic and Political Science’s Firoz Lalji Centre for Africa. 22 July. In conjunction with this paper, I wrote a short piece for the LSE blog on why peace agreements intensify the war economy in South Sudan, and gave a lecture on the paper at the LSE, which you can listen to here.

My hands never shake. A very short story about control and Covid-19, which won a Five Dials ‘Very Specific Commission’ competition for short fiction. 13 July.

Covid-19 and the migrant. A short piece of journalism on migration and the pandemic. Codastory. 6 July.

Quiet Catastrophes. A travelogue on Covid-19, South Sudan, and catastrophes, loud and quiet. For n+1 online. 2 June.

Return pressure builds as COVID-19 hits South Sudan displacement camps. An analysis piece written with Naomi Pendle. The New Humanitarian. 1 June.

The class consequences of lockdown. An op-ed written with Carlo Invernizzi-Accetti on the class and racial consequences of the lockdown. For the Guardian, 16 May.

The Dangers of Covid-20: South Sudan’s Political Dilemma. An op-ed written with Naomi Pendle on the problem of lockdown in South Sudan. For African Arguments, 14 May.

A review of António Lobo Antunes new novel, Until Stones Become Lighter Than Water, in Asymptote Journal, 16 April.

2019

A writer’s business. A review essay on Elias Khoury’s novel, My Name is Adam (Archipelago Press, 2019). Asymptote, Fall 2019 issue.

Displaced and Immiserated: The Shilluk of Upper Nile in South Sudan’s civil war, 2014–19. A long research paper on the situation of the Shilluk in South Sudan, for the Human Security Baseline Assessment project of Small Arms Survey. 20 September, 2019.

Barbara’s Ethics of Antagonism. A short essay on Barbara Harrell-Bond, one of the founders of refugee studies and a dearly missed mentor of mine, on the ethics of her life and work, in Forced Migration Review 61, June 2019.

2018

Displacement, Access, and Conflict in South Sudan: A Longitudinal Perspective. A research report that I wrote on the relationship between conflict and humanitarian aid for the Conflict Sensitivity Resource Facility. 21 May, 2018.

2017

The secret's signature. An essay on redaction, secrecy, and conceptual art. This essay was published in a box-book, composed of my essay, and reproductions of seven of Jenny Holzer’s paintings. The box-book was called Belligerent (New York, Ivory Press).

More Immanence, More Gods. A short essay on immanence, philosophy, and theology, published in The Immanent Frame. October 10, 2017.

Can we see torture? I wrote a short essay on Jenny Holzer’s painting ‘The White House 2002 Green White,’ for the catalogue of Evidentiary Realism: Investigate, Forensic, and Documentary Art, at the Nome Gallery, New York.

How To Do Things With(out) Words. On 25 April 2015, I participated in a panel entitled 'Fact, Fiction and the In-between' at the Art in General What Now? symposium on the Politics of Listening, organized in collaboration with the Vera List Center for Art and Politics. A book that collates the discussions which occurred during that symposium has now been published, and my talk, entitled 'How To Do Things With(out) Words', which dealt with redacted documents from the American war on terror, is on pp.48-53.

2016

The Mission of Forgetting. An essay on the UN mission in South Sudan, wilful ignorance, and the vagaries of UN flight timetables. In Chimurenga's excellent magazine, Chronic. 5 April 2016. You can read it here on Chimurenga, or here, with a couple of minor differences to the published version, and larger font sizes.

A State of Disunity: Conflict Dynamics in Unity State, 2013-15, is a 256-page Working Paper that I wrote with Jérôme Tubiana, which looks at the history of the South Sudanese Civil War in Unity State. It includes analysis of the UN's decision to arm the rebels at the outset of the conflict, the manipulation of humanitarian aid, and a blow by blow account of the war, county by county.

Legitimacy, Exclusion, and Power: Taban Deng Gai and the future of the South Sudan peace process, is an Issue Brief that analyses Taban Deng Gai's accession to power as First Vice-President of South Sudan, and its implication for the South Sudanese peace process (HSBA Issue Brief 25, Geneva: Small Arms Survey, 15 December 2016).

2015

In The Dead Letter Office. In Jenny Holzer: War Paintings, edited by Thomas Kellein (Walther König, Koln, September 29 2015). An essay on Jenny Holzer's Redaction Paintings, the logic of state secrecy, and what happens when a document is painted. This essay was published in the catalogue of Jenny Holzer's 'War Paintings' exhibition, which was on display in the Museo Correr, in Venice, from May-November 2015. The catalogue produced in collaboration with Frankfurt's Written Art Foundation. You can buy the catalogue here, or read the essay here. An earlier version of this essay appeared in Media-N's issue on the aesthetics of disappearance, on 7 May 2015. You can read that version here.

Excerpts from a Grammar of Redaction. A version of a part of my 'Grammar of Redaction', which was exhibited at the New Museum's Temporary Center for Translation in Summer 2014, was published in Archival Dissonance: Knowledge Production and Contemporary Art (I.B. Tauris/Ibraaz, May 2015). You can read the excerpt here, or you can read the entire grammar here.

Nobody Talks About The Weather. On the logic of the conflict in South Sudan, the fantasies of international observers, and the centrality of the weather. In Creative Time Reports. 24 March. You can read it here.

2014

Saving the Bad New Things. An essay about Beaumaris, Wales, and the collapse of artisanal labour, which poses the question of why we save things--buildings, ruins, people. In Onsite Review 32: Weak Systems. Fall 2014.

Contested Borders: Continuing Tensions over the Sudan-South Sudan Border, is a 79-page working paper updating my previous working paper, Dividing Lines, which looks at the Sudan-South Sudan border since 2013 (HSBA Working Paper No. 34, Geneva: Small Arms Survey, 13 November 2014).

An excerpt from Redacted Mind, the novel I am currently working on, was published on the New Museum's blog, Six Degrees, on 12 November, 2014. The novel tells the story of four individuals, caught in a web of redacted documents. 

A Grammar of Redaction. As part of the New Museum's Temporary Center for Translation (Summer 2014), I published an essay from an ongoing book project, How To Do Things Without Words, which looks at the logic of redacted documents from the American War on Terror. You can read the long essay here, and download the 'phrasebook' (which contains the documents I refer to in the grammar), here. An excerpt from the grammar was published in the edited volume, Archival Dissonance: Knowledge Production and Contemporary Art (I.B. Tauris/Ibraaz, 2015).

The Lover of the Hand. In response to the AAAW's call to review a book from Ibn al-Nadim's Kitāb al-Fihrist (Book of Lists), I responded with a review of the apparently anonymously authored book, The Lover of the Hand. It's anonymity, as I make clear, is a dangerous deception. Published 25 June, 2014.

In Gurs. An excerpt from a book I am writing with my father about a trip we took to Gurs, the site of a former WWII-era interment camp. The book, entitled On Passage, is a series of meditative exchanges on ideas of passage. 20 April 2014.

2013

Dreams are not made of Concrete. Fourth Genre. Volume 15, Issue 2. Fall 2013. A long essay on migration, money, and dreams, in Juba, South Sudan.

Is a building a witness? Onsite Review 30: Ethics and Publics. An essay on the decline of the figure of the witness, and the rise of forensics. Fall 2013.

Dividing lines: Grazing and conflict along the Sudan-South Sudan border, is a 65,000-word working paper that looks at the challenges posed to pastoral and nomadic groups by South Sudan's independence, and the creation of a national frontier running between the two countries (HSBA Working Paper No. 30, Geneva: Small Arms Survey, 18 July 2013).

Unclear Lines: State and Non-State Actors in Abyei. A more academic essay on territory in Abyei, South Sudan, published in Chris Vaughan, Mareike Schomerus, and Lotje de Vries (eds.) 2013. The Borderlands of South Sudan: Authority and Identity in Contemporary and Historical Perspectives. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.

Under the soil, the people. Onsite Review 29: Geology. An essay on geology and the claims of memory. May 2013.

Influence: three and a half metaphors. An essay on the difficult of working out just who one's influences are. The Waste Books. 20 April 2013.

2012

Every thing has its own silence. An essay on sound and silence, in Marseille and Paris. Onsite Review 28: Sound. Fall 2012. You can read a version of this essay just prior to the final tearsheet here.

Islands of the Imagination. A short letter on islands. Onsite Review 28: Sound. Fall 2012.

On the road to Yei. A reportage on rubbish in Juba, South Sudan. Anthropology News. 15 October 2012.

Death in Field is a meditative short story about stock photography, and the search for unique gestures. Hotel Amerika. Fall Issue. 2012. Vol. 10. No. 2. 

A sketch for the tent of the future. An essay on Qadhafi, nomadism, and the history of the Libyan state. Read it in Onsite Review 27: Rural Urbanism. 5 May 2012. You can read an extract here.

Freethrows and miniatures. An essay on gesture, novelty, and my inability to learn to shoot hoops. 8 May 2012.

No lines, no peace? On the borders of Abyei. Anthropology News. 21 February 2012.

On hunting. A meandering exploration of exile, detectives, and, obviously, hunters. Originally published at The Waste Books. 13 January 2012. Then published as a letter in Onsite Review 27: Rural Urbanism. 5 May 2012. There is also a podcast of me reading the text, available here.

just stay put and keep quiet. An essay on the form of the camp. Originally published at The Waste Books. 13 January 2012. Then published as a letter in Onsite Review 27: Rural Urbanism. 5 May 2012.

2011

Moral Conquest: visiting the Wellcome Collection. A review essay about Mary Douglas' famous phrase, "dirt is matter out of place." On-Site Review 26: Dirt. Fall Issue 2011. 

Burning the future, which looks at the story of a mysteriously inoperative waste dump in Juba, South Sudan, is available in Onsite Review 26: Dirt. Fall Issue 2011. 

Stasis | Noise | Heaviness. An essay on ideas of home and nomadism. 20 December 2011.

Breaking the cycle of violence in Sudan. Guardian. Original text is here. 3 September 2011.

Creating Facts on the Ground: Conflict Dynamics in Abyei, is a working paper that I wrote in the aftermath of the Sudanese army's invasion of the territory, and chronicles life in the area during the first six months of 2011 (HSBA Working Paper No. 26, Geneva: Small Arms Survey, 7 July 2011).

Khartoum a bloqué les accords de paix à Abyei. La Croix. The text is here. 17 June 2011.

When the War Began is a story about the difficult of working out when, precisely, something begins. Annalemma Magazine, Online edition. 13 April 2011.

How we train our cops to fear Islam is an investigation into the way American law enforcement are trained in counterterrorism that I carried out and wrote with Meg Stalcup. It was published in the Washington Monthly, and the research was supported by The Nation Institute Investigative Fund. The original is here. This page fills you in on the acrimony and Senate inquiries that followed the publication of the story. 3 March 2011.

In Abyei. A short reportage from Abyei, Sudan, when it was attacked by government-sponsored militias. 3 March 2011.

Self is a form. A selection of aphorisms (well, two of them). Hotel Amerika. Volume 10. Number. 1. Fall Edition 2011. 

Animal Cities, on urban planning in Juba. Onsite Review 25: Identity. Spring Issue 2011. 

2010

Between the Red Lines, on urban planning in Oakland. Onsite Review 24: Migration. Fall issue 2010. 

Counting a Divided Nation: On the Sudanese Census. A short article I published in Anthropology News in May 2010, looking at some of the contradictions inherent in approaching a political process quantitatively.

The Logic of Soap & A Mobile Home. (two short texts). re:site. Insert in Onsite Review 24: Migration. Fall Issue 2010. Available here in the original, (pp.6-9), or you can read them on this site. Here is the first text, about mining in Sierra Leone, and here is the second, about notions of home.

2009

To read as if for the first time is a long review of Archive Fever, an exhibition that occurred at the International Centre of Photography, New York in 2008. It discusses the Mau-Mau in Kenya, Derridean games in the archive, and more besides. Published 15 September, 2009.

About Lewis is a review of Madawi Al-Rasheed's Contesting the Saudi State: Islamic Voices from a New Generation, written for the sadly now defunct SaudiDebate.com, for which I wrote a bi-monthly column on intellectual affairs in the Gulf. Some of the essays published on this site came out in a book I co-edited with Mark Huband, The Kingdom: Saudi Arabia and the Challenge of the 21st Century (London/New York: Hurst & Co./Columbia University Press, 2009). Some of the other essays I wrote for SaudiDebate.com are available here. Published 2 August, 2009.

Above is a selection of my essays since the beginning of 2009. A selection of my pre-2010 essays can be found on the essays page.