In the DPhil chapter that I will present, I examine how state absence affects the daily lives of residents in Unity State, South Sudan’s oldest oil-producing region. Based on my fieldwork in Rubkona County, I argue that absence is not simply the result of weak institutions or a governance vacuum. Rather, echoing Ferguson’s (1990) and Gupta’s (2012) insights, I treat absence as a productive force – one that generates its own social, economic, and political effects. Through ethnographic encounters exemplified by dilapidated social services and a retreating corporate social responsibility (CSR), I show how institutions persist in form but are hollowed out in function. This hollowing out allows the state to extract oil wealth while practising what I term as a ‘governance through non-distribution.’ Such a mode of governance systematically limits the flow of rents back to oil-producing peripheries. The chapter thus moves beyond the classic rentier debates about redistribution and macro-fiscal outcomes. It highlights how non- distribution transforms local economies, shifts service provision into private and informal spheres, and provokes acts of local agency – expressed protests, negotiations, and collective coping strategies. These tensions, I argue, reveal both the fragility and resilience of both the oil-producing communities and their respective institutions.