The Creating Safer Space research project “Visualising early warning and preparedness in civilian protection: Investigating local vernaculars of community adaptations to insecurity” have uncovered cultural practices to protect civilians in conflict.
Diria Vicky Thomas and Haji Elias, two researchers working with Community Aid for Relief and Development (CARD) and Lomore Development Organization (LDO), partnering Chas Morrison from Coventry University (UK), have been investigating cultural self-protection and conflict preparedness measures in South Sudan. They report on their findings:
“We have uncovered a huge range of cultural practices employed for early warning and conflict preparedness. These are generally distinct among different tribal groups in the country.
They tend to be traditional, hierarchical, procedural, formalised, low-tech, non-literate and highly divided along gender lines. They include use of tied grasses, ash circles, drumming/song, cursed water/goatskins/charcoal, prayers and fasting practices, and other spiritual defences/curses. We have collected examples of many such practices.
Briefly, symbols for early warning/preparedness are multi-purpose, used against different threat types (violence, ghosts, insects, floods etc), embedded in tribal identities, and conflate preparing for fighting with avoidance of violence. That is, avoiding conflict is not necessarily a goal in itself, but that violence should be carried out under strict demarcated lines and in accordance with tribal norms. As one village chief stated, “We prefer witchcraft protection, more than physical protection”.
UCP organisations and programming should be sensitive to such cultural practices, and embed them into formal structures and responses to violence. There is a clear division between traditional and formulaic practices of inter-tribe violence, and modern forms of violence which are associated with struggles for political power, criminality, and proliferation of small arms (rather than traditional spear, or bow & arrow).”
Men in South Sudan illustrating the use of grasses tied together to convey a specific symbolic meaning. When the heads of the grasses are tied together, it symbolises a clash (that there will be fighting). When the heads of the grasses are apart, as the man in the middle demonstrates with his hands, it symbolises that violence will be avoided.