Description
This research engages a semiotic approach to investigate symbols and signs in grassroots early warning messaging, and how these are diffused, amplified and received. The cultures of self-protection here comprise religious, cultural and tribal practices. Many of these are used for early warning and conflict preparedness. Personal connections, culturally bound mechanisms like signs and symbols, and word of mouth play a significant role in sharing knowledge of impending attacks or troop movements. All these communication mechanisms share comparatively high levels of implicit trust, barriers to formal interpretation, require culturally-specific understanding, and remain confined to local levels. They are embedded in complex semiotics and cultural boundaries that are challenging to capture with formal and text-based processes, one reason why local early warning practices have not integrated well into top-down approaches for conflict reduction.
This project investigates cultures of self-protection in South Sudan, used for Early Warning and conflict preparedness. Early Warning is a fundamental aspect of Civilian Protection in response to threats from conflated types of violence: political, criminal and cattle raiding. South Sudan has suffered enormously from violence and conflict, especially since 2013 when the post-independence civil war started. The overarching research question is how are community signs, symbols and culturally specific communications used for gathering, sharing, and responding to information about impending violence? This project investigates cultures of self-protection of civilians through anthropological explorations of their practices and beliefs with a semiotic approach.
