So far in this book, the exploration of the dynamics of land control and urban development in Juba has been limited to relations between state and local elites and to wider debates about authority over territory and political jurisdiction. Yet, local state-building in Juba was not only comprised of interactions between elites. The end of conflict introduced a variety of actors into the town who had a stake in the politics of reconstruction. These included ex-combatants, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), refugees returning from neighbouring countries, and members of the diaspora. These groups, each with different experiences of war, represented the diversity of Southern Sudan, and they also played an important role in local state-building. While the leaders of the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) and the Central Equatoria State (CES) Government debated authority over land in the capital, Juba’s residents articulated their own visions of the Southern Sudanese state as they claimed plots of land in peri-urban areas of the town. Their various claims rested on their status as victims of war, historical residency, and contributions to the liberation movement. Their role in the local politics of land had to do with access to property and status as legitimate residents of the city, as well as claims on the state and conceptions of citizenship.

Debates over land were not only an issue of political authority and jurisdiction; they were about access to property. Questions over access to land arose in the context of a massive demographic transformation in the town following the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). At the time of the CPA it was estimated that there were 686,000 Sudanese refugees in neighbouring states, and another two million southerners who were thought to be still living in camps around Khartoum. Following the CPA, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) initiated an effort to repatriate as many southerners as soon as possible, in time for the 2008 Census. As the most developed town in Southern Sudan and the headquarters of GoSS, Juba was the obvious destination for the majority of these returnees. While many had customary rights to land in their areas of origin, Juba provided access to education, employment and social services, as well as proximity to family and social networks.