Rural Radicalism in the Capital City: The Impact of Histories of Inequitable Safety on Patterns of Violence

Around the world, armed conflict is increasingly occurring in capital cities and govern-ments are relying on pro-government, rurally recruited, militia to suppress anti-government political violence. Pendle and Maror draw lessons from South Sudan whererecruits from rural areas were brought to Juba to help defend the government. Drawing onethnographic observations and qualitative interviews with combatants, this article uses“rural radicalism” to argue that patterns of violence by these rurally recruited forces wereshaped by histories of rural violence over previous decades and can be read to include apolitical objective that challenges the inequities in safety and security between rural areasand the capital city.