Drawing on insights gleaned from ethnographic fieldwork over the last decade, we focus here on targeted research from January to August 2014 with former LRA individuals who were part of a bigger study of clients at an ex-combatant reception centre.

We explore how these persons have experienced, described, and responded to the suffering caused by ajwani (“dirty things”) – the stuff of a polluted cosmos. We further discuss the politics of “belief” and doubt in contemporary Acholi.