In 2006, New York-based freelance photographer Tim McKulka took a job with the U.N. Mission in Sudan based in the southern capital of Juba. "At the time, I had only read about Sudan from a distance, and knew some vague things about it," he says. "I certainly wasn't an analyst by any stretch." Once there, McKulka discovered that his U.N. affiliation gave him a unique freedom of movement in a country whose government is often chary about foreign journalists. After a few years he had amassed a formidable archive of images, and started thinking about what use they might serve to Africa's largest country at a moment when it was coming apart at the seams.

The result is We'll Make Our Homes Here: Sudan at the Referendum, a U.N.-published book that joins McKulka's photographs with reflections on Sudanese identity from 17 Sudanese writers, spanning everything from political analysis and journalism to fiction and poetry. (The book is being published in a limited print run by the U.N. Mission in Sudan, and will soon be available in digital form as a free iPad app.) "I had originally envisioned it as a kind of peace-building tool, to foster dialogue to let people hear other perspectives, or at least have them out there," McKulka says.

We'll Make Our Homes Here is the first book to include photography from all 25 Sudanese states -- and, thanks to South Sudan's decision in January to secede on July 9, also the last. But as Sudan splits apart and descends into a fresh round of violence between the government in Khartoum and the hinterlands, McKulka believes, it's more important than ever for the fractured country's residents to remember their shared history. "Whatever happens, [the North and the South] are going to be linked: linked by culture, linked by migration, linked economically," he says. "It's not about promoting unity -- that's an irrelevance now. It's about understanding what led to this, and what the history was."

Above, an elderly woman displaced from the town of Abyei stands on an airstrip in nearby Agok during an emergency food distribution by the World Food Program in May 2008. The fighting in Abyei between the Sudanese military and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) killed over 100 people, displaced 50,000 from their homes, and left the town in ruins.

Tim McKulka/UN Photo

An SPLA soldier stands in front of traditionally adorned Mundari women in Molujore, Central Equatoria State (soon to be part of South Sudan), February 2010.

Tim McKulka/UN Photo 

A child at a cattle camp in Bor, Jonglei State (soon to be part of South Sudan), May 2009. Cattle herders cover their bodies in ash from burned cow dung in order to protect themselves against tsetse flies, mosquitoes, and other insects that are omnipresent in the swampy area.

Tim McKulka/UN Photo 

Young Jikany Nuer girls dance following an agreement over the bride price for one of their peers in Jikmer, Upper Nile State (soon to be part of South Sudan), October 2009.

Tim McKulka/UN Photo 

A Misseriya woman thatches her dry-season shelter in Todaj, Abyei Area, January 2009. The semi-nomadic Misseriya move south from Southern Kordofan State into the fertile Abyei region -- an area disputed by the North and South and the site of recent fighting in anticipation of independence -- during the dry season to graze their cattle.

Tim McKulka/UN Photo 

A young boy holds a toy AK-47 that he fashioned out of bamboo and mud in Nasser, Upper Nile State, October 2009.

Tim McKulka/UN Photo 

A seasonal worker walks through fields of chili peppers in Gezira State, June 2010. The area between the Blue and White Nile rivers south of Khartoum is one of the largest irrigation projects in the world and the most productive agricultural region in Sudan.

Tim McKulka/UN Photo 

Newly constructed oil company headquarters flank a mosque on the banks of the Blue Nile river in the capital of Khartoum, October 2010.

Tim McKulka/UN Photo

Children learn the English alphabet at a makeshift school in Owiny-Kibul, Eastern Equatoria State (soon to be part of South Sudan), October 2007.

Tim McKulka/UN Photo 

Station No. 4 on the Khartoum-Wadi Halfa train line in Northern State, October 2009. Sudan boasts one of the most extensive train networks in Africa with over 3,100 miles of track, but years of neglect have taken their toll on the aging infrastructure.

Tim McKulka/UN Photo 

Train conductor's office at Station No. 4 on the Khartoum-Wadi Halfa rail line in Northern State, October 2009. The tracks in Sudan's railroad network were originally laid between 1895 and 1898 by Anglo-Egyptian forces as a military supply line during the colonial war against Muhammad Ahmad's Mahdist army.

Tim McKulka/UN Photo 

A young girl watches SPLA soldiers parade in Obbo, Eastern Equatoria State, prior to their redeployment to Juba, October 2007.

Tim McKulka/UN Photo 

The family of an SPLA officer killed in battle mourns over his casket at the family homestead in Rumbek, Lakes State (soon to be part of South Sudan), September 2009.

Tim McKulka/UN Photo 

Candles are placed around the tomb of John Garang during the celebration of Martyr’s Day, which commemorates all those who lost their lives during Sudan’s civil wars, in Juba, Central Equatoria State, July 2008. Garang, who had led the south Sudanese rebellion since the early 1980s, was killed in a helicopter crash in July 2005, three weeks after he was sworn in as vice president.

Tim McKulka/UN Photo 

A rebel from the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), a Darfuri rebel group, lounges in front of two United Nations/African Union armored personnel carriers during a meeting between SLA commanders and peace envoys from the U.N. and the African Union in Umm Rai, Northern Darfur State, February 2007.

Tim McKulka/UN Photo 

An ostrich walks among Sufi worshippers during celebrations to mark the anointing of a sheikh in Umm Aidan, Sennar State, June 2010.

Tim McKulka/UN Photo

A man walks through a haboob -- an intense sandstorm typical in Sudan and other arid regions -- in Kulbus, Western Darfur State, June 2010.

Tim McKulka/UN Photo 

An elder from the northeastern Rashaida ethnic group sits in his home while his wife prepares coffee in Malamiye, Kassala State, June 2010.

Tim McKulka/UN Photo 

A fisherman brings his boat and nets to shore at dusk on Lake Nubia, Northern State, October 2009. Lake Nubia, known as Lake Nasser in Egypt, is the reservoir created by the Aswan High Dam that was completed in 1970.

Tim McKulka/UN Photo 

Soldiers from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), the feared rebel group that operates in southern Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Uganda, and Central African Republic, on the Sudan-DRC border in Western Equatoria State (soon to be part of South Sudan), April 2008.

Tim McKulka/UN Photo 

The remains of a rocket-propelled grenade lies in a civilian area of Malakal following deadly clashes between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the SPLA, Upper Nile State, December 2006.

Tim McKulka/UN Photo 

The rural landscape of Gedaref State near El Galabat, June 2010.

Tim McKulka/UN Photo 

  

Young men play pool on the corniche in the shadow of the container terminal at Port Sudan, Sudan's primary port for international trade and the terminus of the pipeline from which Sudanese oil exports flow, Red Sea State, October 2009.

Tim McKulka/UN Photo 

 

A destroyed tank sits on the plains on the outskirts of Nasser, Upper Nile State, October 2009, a reminder that in Sudan, upheaval is always on the horizon.

Tim McKulka/UN Photo