The crisis in Sudan is multiplex and encompasses economic, humanitarian, social, and political dimensions. Sudan experiences severe economic challenges, such as shortages of essential goods, high inflation, and currency depreciation. It has also struggled with humanitarian emergencies, including disease outbreaks, food insecurity, and internal displacement. Moreover, Sudan has been experiencing political instability due to civil wars, authoritarian rule, as well as frequent government changes, hindering how citizens socialize and live. In particular, Sudanese women have significantly been affected by these crises rooted in necropolitics, gender politics, and security. Necropolitics refers to using political and social power to control how individuals live and die. Gender politics is the societal norms, power dynamics, and anticipations surrounding men’s and women’s roles. Security is feeling or being secure and free from threat or danger. In light of this, the paper discusses how necropolitics, gender politics, and security influences women’s lives in Sudan.
Necropolitics involves using political and social power to direct how some individuals may live or die. Mbembe places the notion of necropower and necropolitics to account for numerous ways in which, in the modern world, weapons are deployed to destroy individuals to create death worlds that entail new and distinct social existence forms where populations are subjected to life conditions granting them the status of the living dead. He into the relationship between sovereignty, power, and death. Incorporating necropolitics, he explains how nations or states control their populations by determining how they live and managing their mortality. Sudan, a country that has faced decades of authoritarian rule, political turmoil, and civil war, demonstrates the interplay between necropolitics, sovereignty, and gender politics. Sudan’s history of supreme powers controlling its citizens has led to multiple forms of violence as well as oppression, specifically of women.
The Sudanese government, under rulers like Omar al-Bashir, have exercised necropolitics and sovereignty by employing intimidation and terror to maintain power. Women involved in political dissent or activism are targeted and subjected to torture, arrests, severe punishments, or extralegal killings. The necropolitical regime concept affirms that violence is integral to sustaining power. (Mbembe, 2019) Therefore, Sudanese women experience suffering and are killed to reinforce dominance and prevent political dissent. These acts shape social relations and the lives of Sudanese women by creating a climate of submission and fear. Besides inflicting physical violence, through Mbembe’s necropolitics regime concept, the Sudan government promotes systemic discrimination. Women, in particular, face systemic discrimination since the government has imposed customs and laws restricting their autonomy, such as those regulating their behavior and dressing. These social control tools subjugate women, resulting in their submission and patriarchal power.
Gender politics that entails societal norms and political dynamics and anticipation surrounding the roles of both genders have contributed to how women live in Sudan. Incorporating necropolitics and the roles women should engage in, the Sudan government has propelled economic marginalization and poverty among women by leaving gaps in labor laws supporting equal participation in workforces, exacerbating their vulnerability to exploitation and violence. Women in Sudan lack access to job opportunities, lack control and ownership of productive assets, are burdened with double household responsibilities, and experience the repercussions of violence (Gender Analysis in Sudan, n.d.). Conflicts in regions like South Kordofan and Darfur have contributed to displacement as well as humanitarian crises, with women facing the greatest burden.
The Copenhagen School defines security as a collective survival and argues that something that threatens this collective survival involves a political process. (Hansen, 2000) Hansen critiques how gender is neglected when analyzing security issues. Sudan focuses on conventional state security perspectives and overlooks gendered notions of security dynamics, although gender shapes security experiences. Gender intertwines with necropolitics to shape women’s experiences of insecurity and violence. The Sudanese government has employed intimidation and terror tactics to control women, promoting insecurity among women against the region’s political governance. Through the Little Mermaid sacrificing her voice to gain security and human love, Hansen demonstrates how gender norms constrain women and are attributable to their security choices (Hansen, 2000). In Sudan, women’s security is based on them complying with gender expectations as well as patriarchal norms, limiting their capacity to advocate for oppressive regime changes. This results in women living like minions to avoid security problems.
Hansen also emphasizes the need to incorporate gender into security analysis and studies when critiquing the Copenhagen School. The absence of gender or overlooking it stems from security as silence as well as subsuming security issues (Hansen, 2000). Security as silence involves the subject of security having no or limited possibility of speaking or saying its security problems. Relating to security as silence, women in Sudan maintain silence to be secure and refrain from challenging politics in their nation due to fear of being penalized. Subsuming security results from gendered security concerns involving the link between the subject’s identity, such as religious or national and their gendered identity. It influences or shapes women’s experiences in Sudan, with most of their security needs neglected while prioritizing state security concerns. This leads to significant economic and physical safety issues among women.
Securitization and desecuritization also influence women’s lives and place in Sudan. Ole Waever defines securitization as the process by which specific issues are termed existential threats to the state’s or community’s security. Something is declared a security issue and warrants addressing when elites declare it a problem. Sudan marginalizes discrimination and gender-based violence and focuses on political instability and conflicts. Therefore, women are exposed to experiencing violence and homelessness or displacement as these are not security issues according to the state or elites. Ole Waever also clarifies desecuritization as the normalization or deconstruction of security threats. In this context, it involves neglecting state security issues and perceiving security threats against women by advocating for gender equality. However, desecuritization in Sudan encounters hindrances due to cultural resistance and power structures, leaving women helpless in terms of security.
In conclusion, necropolitics, gender politics, and security have remarkably influenced women's lives and crises in Sudan. Therefore, promoting gender equality and safety among women warrants examining the intersections of gender, power, death, sovereignty, and security definition to gain insights necessary to navigate the multifaceted dynamics shaping women’s lives in Sudan and empower them.
References
Hansen, L. (2000). The little mermaid’s silent security dilemma and the absence of gender in the copenhagen school. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 29(2), 285–306. https://doi.org/10.1177/03058298000290020501
Ole, Wæver. 1995. “Securitization and Desecuritization.” In On Security, edited by
Ronnie Lipschutz. New York: Columbia University Press.
Mbembe, Achille. ‘Necropolitics.’ Public culture 15, no. 1 (2003): 11-40
Gender Analysis in Sudan. (n.d.). https://careevaluations.org/wp-content/uploads/Gender-Analysis-in-Sudan-April-2023.pdf
Thankyou for the insightful blog! This provides a thorough examination of the intersections between power relations, violence, and systemic oppression in order to highlight the gendered effects of necropolitics in Sudan's dilemma. It moves across theoretical frameworks like postcolonial theory, gender studies, and necropolitics to show how the Sudanese state uses the control of life and death to exert sovereignty, especially against communities who are marginalised and is very engaging to read.
Great blog, Aneesh! I also did my first blog on the crisis in Sudan. The role of women is prominent in the political opposition to authoritarian regimes. I want to say one reason for this, like the ones that Naisha has also brought out in her blog on Kashmir;-is that men become subject to the security dilemma and go quiet. Meanwhile, the notion that "women are to be protected" makes women more politically active. Tell me your thoughts on this!
Aneesh really hits the mark with his take on how necropolitics, gender politics, and security issues are all tangled up in Sudan. He explains well how these problems all feed into each other and make life even harder for Sudanese women. It's clear that these issues cause a lot of suffering, like violence and oppression, and it's important for us to understand how they all fit together. This blog shows us why it's so urgent to come up with plans that tackle all these problems at once, so that Sudanese women can have a fair shot at reclaiming their rights and control over their lives, despite all the challenges they face.