Resources

This section offers a list of resources available for those interested in learning more about the Murle community. When available, a link is provided. Please reach out if you would like to suggest any additions to this list.

Amnesty International. ‘South Sudan: Lethal Disarmament – Abuses Related to Civilian Disarmament in Pibor County, Jonglei State’, London: Amnesty International Publications, 2012.

Andretta, Elizabeth. ‘A Reconsideration of the Basis of Group Cohesion among the Murle of Southern Sudan’. PhD Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1985.

Andretta, Elizabeth. ‘Symbolic Continuity, Material Discontinuity, and Ethnic Identity among Murle Communities in the Southern Sudan’. Ethnology 28, no. 1 (1 January 1989): 17–31.

Arensen, Jonathan. Mice Are Men: Language and Society among the Murle of Sudan. International Museum of Cultures, no. 27. Dallas: International Museum of Cultures, 1992.

Arensen, Jonathan. ‘Human Ecology of the Murle’. Paper Delivered at a Conference in Nairobi Organized by AECOM. Nairobi: AECOM, 2012

Arensen, Jonathan. ‘Murle Political Systems and Age-Sets’. Paper Delivered at a Conference in Nairobi Organized by AECOM. Nairobi: AECOM, 2012

Arensen, Jonathan. ‘The History of Murle Migrations’. Paper Delivered at a Conference in Nairobi Organized by AECOM. Nairobi: AECOM, 2012

Arensen, Jonathan. Murle Grammar. Occasional Papers in the Study of Sudanese Languages, no. 2. Juba: College of Education, University of Juba ; Summer Institute of Linguistics ; Institute of Regional Languages, 1982.

Arensen, Jonathan. ‘Names in the Life Cycles of the Murle’. Journal of Anthropological Society of Oxford XIX, no. 1 (1988): 125–30.

Arensen, Jonathan. ‘On Comparing Language Relationships: A Case Study of Murle, Kacipo, and Tirma’. Occasional Papers in the Study of Sudanese Languages, 1989.

Felix da Costa, Diana. ‘The politics of being Murle in South Sudan: state violence, displacement and the narrativisation of identity’, Journal of Eastern African Studies 17:(3) pp. 404-423

Felix da Costa, Diana. Changing Power Among Murle Chiefs: Negotiating Political, Military and Spiritual Authority in Boma State, South Sudan’. South Sudan Customary Authorities Project. Juba: Rift Valley Institute, 2018.

Felix da Costa, Diana. ‘This word, it is for Murle, not meant for other people’: The politics of Murle identity, experiences of violence and of the state in Boma, South Sudan’. PhD Dissertation, SOAS University of London, 2016.

Felix da Costa, Diana. ‘Cattle and Pastoralism in Murle Land: Fieldwork Report’. Juba: Vétérinaires Sans Frontières-Germany and VISTAS USAID, Unpublished report May 2015.

Felix da Costa, Diana. ‘“We Are One, but We Are Different”: Murle Identity and Local Peacebuilding in Jonglei State, South Sudan’. Policy Brief. Oslo: Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre (NOREF), June 2013.

Felix da Costa, D. and Gola Boyoi Gola, ‘Navigating the complex webs of Murle authority in Pibor: conflict sensitivity considerations for aid actors‘, Blog post Conflict Sensitivity Resource Facility South Sudan, 27 June 2023

Felix da Costa, D. and J. Boloch Kumen, ‘What can the changing tastes in body scarification tell us about the lives and aspirations of Murle youth?‘, Blog post Rift Valley Institute, 24 January 2023

Felix da Costa, Diana, Naomi Pendle, and Jérôme Tubiana. “‘What Is Happening Now Is Not Raiding, It’s War’: The Growing Politicisation and Militarisation of Cattle-Raiding among the Western Nuer and Murle during South Sudan’s Civil Wars.” In Routledge Handbook of the Horn of Africa, edited by Jean-Nicolas Bach, Jon Abbink, and JustinWillis. Routledge, 2022

Human Rights Watch. ‘“They Are Killing Us” Abuses Against Civilians in South Sudan’s Pibor County’. Human Rights Watch, September 2013

Kidongi, James (storyteller and collector). Murle Folktales in South Sudanese Folktales

Laudati, A. 2011. ‘Victims of discourse: mobilizing narratives of fear and insecurity in post conflict South Sudan—the case of Jonglei State’. African Geopolitical Review 30/1: 15–32

Leff, Jonah. ‘My Neighbour, My Enemy: Inter-Tribal Violence in Jonglei’. Sudan Issue Brief. Human Security Baseline Assessment. Geneva: Small Arms Survey, October 2012.

Lewis, Bazett A. ‘Murle folk tales’. Sudan Notes and Records 28 (1947): 135–45.

Lewis, Bazett A. The Murle: Red Chiefs and Black Commoners. Oxford: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press, 1972.

Lyth, Richard E. A Murle Vocabulary. Khartoum: Publications Bureau, Ministry of Education, 1955.

McCallum, Judith. ‘Murle Identity in Post-Colonial South Sudan’. PhD Dissertation, York University, 2013.

McCallum, Judith. ‘The Murle and the Security Complex in the South Sudan-Ethiopian Borderlands’. Horn of Africa Bulletin 29, no. 3 (June 2017).

McCallum, Judith, and Alfred Okech. ‘Drivers of Conflict in Jonglei State’. Humanitarian Exchange Magazine – Humanitarian Practice Network, 2013.

Todisco, Claudio 2015 Humanitarianism and the Duty to Govern. Politics of Place and Practices of Motion among the Murle of South Sudan, PhD Dissertation, Geneva Graduate Institute

Todisco, Claudio. 2015 Real but Fragile: ‘The Greater Pibor Administrative Area,’ Number 35, Geneva: Small Arms Survey, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies.

Thomas, Edward. 2015 South Sudan: A Slow Liberation. London: Zed Books.