Clémence Pinaud

Associate Professor

Phone:: (812) 855-6281
Email:: cpinaud@indiana.edu

Department:: International Studies
Campus:: IU Bloomington

Global and International Studies Building, 1016

Research Summary

Pinaud is an expert on South Sudan, African civil wars and genocide. Her research concerns the history of South Sudan's second and third civil wars. She explores wartime processes of social class formation, state-building and violence, including genocide. Trained as a political scientist and a historian, her approach is inter-disciplinary and her findings are based on extensive field research in South Sudan, where she has worked for international aid agencies since 2009. Her doctoral dissertation delved into the relationship between women and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) during the second civil war in South Sudan (1983-2005). Her publications have focused on various aspects of South Sudan’s history, including the making of a national history, women’s military history, the SPLA's predatory behaviors and marital practices, sexual violence, and genocide.

Pinaud's book, War and Genocide in South Sudan (Cornell University Press, 2021) explores the relationship between predatory wealth accumulation, state formation, and a form of racism—extreme ethnic group entitlement—that has the potential to result in genocide. It offers a new political history of South Sudan’s two civil wars that includes a reflection on socio-economic and demographic processes that involve women. This book illustrates her broader interest in the relationship between violence, predation, military allegiance and gendered processes of social class and state formation from 1983 to the present.

Educational Background

Ph.D., History, Paris Sorbonne University, 2013.
M.A. & B.A., Political Science, Sciences Po Lille, 2009

Regions of Interest

South Sudan
Africa

Research Topics

Military history
Women’s history
War economy
Sexual and gender-based violence
Kinship
Social classes
State-building
Political violence

Representative Publications

Books

February 2021, War and Genocide in South Sudan, Cornell University Press

June 2021, Rebel Economies. Warlords, Insurgents, Humanitarians; ed. Nicola Di Cosmo, Didier Fassin, and Clémence Pinaud; Rowman and Littlefield

Peer Reviewed Publications

“Genocidal Rape in South Sudan: Organization, Function and Effects”, in Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 42 (3), August 2020, pp. 667-694 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/761353
June 2016, "Military Kinship, Inc.: Patronage, inter-ethnic marriages and social classes in South Sudan", in Review of African Political Economy, http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/crea20/current
October 2015, ""We are trained to be married!” Elite formation and ideology in the Sudan People's Liberation Army's "Girls' battalion" Ketiba Banat", in Journal of Eastern African Studies, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2015.1091638
April 2014, “South Sudan: Civil War, Predation and the Making of a Military Aristocracy”, in African Affairs, 113/451 (2014), pp. 192–211½http://afraf.oxfordjournals.org/content/113/451/192.abstract
February 2014, “Are "Griefs of More Value Than Triumphs"? Power Relations, Nation-Building and the Different Histories of Women’s Wartime Contributions in Post-War South Sudan”, in Journal of Northeast African Studies Northeast African Studies, Vol. 13, No. 2 (2013), pp. 151-176 | http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.14321/nortafristud.13.2.0151?uid=365974511&uid=3738176&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=31694&uid=3&uid=67&uid=62&sid=21104016237043

Writing in the media and think tanks:

10 March 2021, “Washington and the Inconvenient Genocide in South Sudan”, Democracy in Africa, http://democracyinafrica.org/washingtons-inconvenient-genocide-in-south-sudan/
28 February 2021, “Un processus d’accaparement des terres et de remplacement démographique est en cours au Soudan du Sud”, Le Monde, https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2021/02/28/un-processus-d-accaparement-des-terres-et-de-remplacement-demographique-est-en-cours-au-soudan-du-sud_6071479_3212.html
9 September 2020, “Patterns of Genocidal Rape in South Sudan”, Democracy in Africa, http://democracyinafrica.org/genocidal_rape_south_sudan/
11 July 2016, “Who’s behind South Sudan’s return to fighting?”, African Arguments’ website. http://africanarguments.org/2016/07/11/whos-behind-south-sudans-return-to-fighting/
July 2015, “Conflict and Extremist-Related Sexual Violence: An International Security Threat”, United States Institute of Peace Brief, with Kerry Crawford, Nicole Gerring, Sabrina Karim, Chloé Lewis, and Caroline Sarkis.
March 2015, “The War in South Sudan: Briefing Note”, Observatoire des Enjeux Politiques et Sécuritaires dans la Corne de l’Afrique, Laboratoire des Afriques dans le Monde, Sciences Po Bordeaux.