Staging a new South Sudan in the USA: men, masculinities and nationalist performance at a diasporic beauty pageant

Abstract

This article explores the gendering of cultural nationalism at a South Sudanese beauty pageant with a focus on the promotional work, organizing efforts and performances of men. Through a visual and textual discourse analysis of materials related to the event, as well as a series of interviews with participants, promoters, judges and audience members, I argue that these male participants articulate a distinctly masculinized form of South Sudanese nationalism. They do so by promoting notions of both a shared, militarized and oppressive past and a peaceful, proud and celebratory future. Central to the production of this nationalist imaginary is an emphasis on the healing of past ethnic-regional conflicts within the South and an image of South Sudanese unity and brotherly, non-violent masculinity. However, whilst pageantry emcees, speakers and musicians call on men to build and nurture the ‘New South Sudan’, the event itself emerges as a site for conflict both online and in incidences of physical violence amongst young male attendees. Members of the community understand this conflict to be bound up with a sense of ethnic-regional allegiance as well as a collective crisis experienced by many young men following the war and amidst the challenges of life in the diaspora. In this way, the pageant works to promote South Sudanese nationalism through the efforts, performances and bodies of young men and the scripting of peaceful nationalist masculinities – even as these are contested and contradicted behind the scenes.