Music and the politics of famine: everyday discourses and shame for suffering

Naomi Pendle; Abraham Diing

doi:10.1111/disa.12662

Music and the politics of famine: everyday discourses and shame for suffering

Naomi Pendle, Abraham Diing

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

1 Citation (SciVal)

Abstract

Understanding the politics of famine is crucial to understanding why famines still occur. A key part of this is how famine is remembered, understood, and discussed. This paper focuses on songs popular among communities that have recently experienced deadly famine. Contemporary famines almost always manifest in armed conflict contexts, where there is limited political freedom. Here, songs and music can be an important way to debate sensitive political issues. This paper focuses on the way that songs and music shape ‘regimes of truth’ around famine, and who is shamed and held accountable for associated suffering. It is based on long-term ethnographic research, the recordings of famine-related songs, and collaborative analysis in Jonglei and Warrap States (South Sudan) in 2021–24. The paper shows how songs can mock soldiers for their seizing of assets during times of hunger and how they can create familial shame for famine suffering, shifting responsibility away from the real causes to family members.

Original language	English
Article number	e12662
Journal	Disasters
Volume	49
Issue number	1
Early online date	23 Oct 2024
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/disa.12662
Publication status	Published - 31 Jan 2025

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.

Funding

We are grateful to the many people\u2014friends, family, colleagues, and strangers in South Sudan\u2014who gave their time and emotional labour to share with us their experiences of famine and the songs that they know about famine. We hope that this is the start of many future conversations with us and others. In relation to this paper, we are particularly thankful to Susanne Jaspars for providing us with a forum and encouraging us to share, write\u2010up, and publish our findings. We are also grateful to Luka Biong Deng, for his wise insights and very valued encouragement. The journal's anonymous peer reviewers also provided crucial and useful input. We are also grateful for the support from the British Academy (grant numbers: TGC\\200333, which supported data collection; and OIIRP230255, which supported additional analysis).

Funders	Funder number
The British Academy	TGC\200333, OIIRP230255

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Keywords

South Sudan
famine
music
shame
songs

ASJC Scopus subject areas

General Social Sciences
General Earth and Planetary Sciences

Access to Document

10.1111/disa.12662Licence: CC BY

Cite this

@article{f8ab1c7394424376bdaad880d4fd2097,

title = "Music and the politics of famine: everyday discourses and shame for suffering",

abstract = "Understanding the politics of famine is crucial to understanding why famines still occur. A key part of this is how famine is remembered, understood, and discussed. This paper focuses on songs popular among communities that have recently experienced deadly famine. Contemporary famines almost always manifest in armed conflict contexts, where there is limited political freedom. Here, songs and music can be an important way to debate sensitive political issues. This paper focuses on the way that songs and music shape {\textquoteleft}regimes of truth{\textquoteright} around famine, and who is shamed and held accountable for associated suffering. It is based on long-term ethnographic research, the recordings of famine-related songs, and collaborative analysis in Jonglei and Warrap States (South Sudan) in 2021–24. The paper shows how songs can mock soldiers for their seizing of assets during times of hunger and how they can create familial shame for famine suffering, shifting responsibility away from the real causes to family members.",

keywords = "South Sudan, famine, music, shame, songs",

author = "Naomi Pendle and Abraham Diing",

year = "2025",

month = jan,

day = "31",

doi = "10.1111/disa.12662",

language = "English",

volume = "49",

journal = "Disasters",

issn = "0361-3666",

publisher = "Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd",

number = "1",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Music and the politics of famine

T2 - everyday discourses and shame for suffering

AU - Pendle, Naomi

AU - Diing, Abraham

PY - 2025/1/31

Y1 - 2025/1/31

N2 - Understanding the politics of famine is crucial to understanding why famines still occur. A key part of this is how famine is remembered, understood, and discussed. This paper focuses on songs popular among communities that have recently experienced deadly famine. Contemporary famines almost always manifest in armed conflict contexts, where there is limited political freedom. Here, songs and music can be an important way to debate sensitive political issues. This paper focuses on the way that songs and music shape ‘regimes of truth’ around famine, and who is shamed and held accountable for associated suffering. It is based on long-term ethnographic research, the recordings of famine-related songs, and collaborative analysis in Jonglei and Warrap States (South Sudan) in 2021–24. The paper shows how songs can mock soldiers for their seizing of assets during times of hunger and how they can create familial shame for famine suffering, shifting responsibility away from the real causes to family members.

AB - Understanding the politics of famine is crucial to understanding why famines still occur. A key part of this is how famine is remembered, understood, and discussed. This paper focuses on songs popular among communities that have recently experienced deadly famine. Contemporary famines almost always manifest in armed conflict contexts, where there is limited political freedom. Here, songs and music can be an important way to debate sensitive political issues. This paper focuses on the way that songs and music shape ‘regimes of truth’ around famine, and who is shamed and held accountable for associated suffering. It is based on long-term ethnographic research, the recordings of famine-related songs, and collaborative analysis in Jonglei and Warrap States (South Sudan) in 2021–24. The paper shows how songs can mock soldiers for their seizing of assets during times of hunger and how they can create familial shame for famine suffering, shifting responsibility away from the real causes to family members.

KW - South Sudan

KW - famine

KW - music

KW - shame

KW - songs

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85207181763

U2 - 10.1111/disa.12662

DO - 10.1111/disa.12662

M3 - Article

SN - 0361-3666

VL - 49

JO - Disasters

JF - Disasters

IS - 1

M1 - e12662

ER -

Music and the politics of famine: everyday discourses and shame for suffering

Abstract

Data Availability Statement

Funding

UN SDGs

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this