Who are the Darfurians? Arab and African identities, violence and external engagement

This article examines processes of identity formation in Darfur, now part of the Republic of Sudan, over the last four centuries. The basic story is of four overlapping processes of identity formation, each of them primarily associated with a different period in the region's history: namely, the ‘Sudanic identities’ associated with the Dar Fur sultanate, Islamic identities, the administrative tribalism associated with the twentieth-century Sudanese state, and the recent polarization of ‘Arab’ and ‘African’ identities, associated with new forms of external intrusion and internal violence. It is a story that emphasizes the much-neglected east-west axis of Sudanese identity, arguably as important as the north-south axis, and redeems the neglect of Darfur as a separate and important locus for state formation in northern Sudan, paralleling and competing with the Nile Valley states. It focuses on the incapacity of both the modern Sudanese state and international actors to comprehend the singularities of Darfur, accusing much Sudanese historiography of ‘Nilocentrism’, namely, the use of analytical terms derived from the experience of the Nile Valley to apply to Darfur.