“I Would Expect Her to Know That She's A Dinka”

Abstract

Anna Jaysane-Darr demonstrates how cultural meaning-making helps the Dinka survive: the collective narrative of building the nation of South Sudan through the creation of authentically South Sudanese individuals gives purpose to their suffering. South Sudanese refugees fleeing a civil war began arriving in the United States in substantial numbers in the early 2000s. Despite many economic barriers, Jaysane-Darr found that having large families and raising authentically Dinka children was central to refugee-background families. She found that the birthing of babies as members of a “transcendent lineage” ties South Sudanese in diaspora to their history, as well as the future of their people and homeland. Jaysane-Darr’s ethnographic, person-centered research was conducted over 17 months between 2009 and 2012 with 55 adults within the South Sudanese refugee community in Massachusetts, followed by an ongoing relationship with the community. The chapter highlights the experiences of South Sudanese parents, especially mothers, and examines the ways in which reproduction and parenting were shaped by families’ desires to contribute to rebuilding their homeland in the future. The author concludes that refugee resettlement policies and local support from voluntary and non-governmental agencies should draw on refugee-defined criteria (cultural logics) in order for resettlement to be successful.