Who Knows Tomorrow? : Uncertainty in North-eastern Sudan

Although uncertainty is intertwined with all human activity, plans, and aspirations, it is experienced differently: at times it is obsessed over and at times it is ignored. This ethnography shows how Rashaida in north-eastern Sudan deal with unknowns from day-to-day unpredictability to life-threatening dangers. It argues that the amplification of uncertainty in some cases and its extenuation in others can be better understood by focusing on forms that can either hold the world together or invite doubt. Uncertainty, then, need not be seen solely as a debilitating problem, but also as an opportunity to create other futures.

Sandra Calkins is assistant professor for anthropology at the Free University of Berlin and a member of the Law, Organization, Science, and Technology group at the University of Halle. She has conducted research in Sudan and Uganda and published on questions of existential uncertainty, reflexivity, health and nutrition. In 2016, she won the young scholar award of the African Studies Association in Germany (VAD) African Studies Association in Germany (VAD).