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Research paper
Wartime Captivity and Homecoming: Culture, Stigma and Coping Strategies of Formerly Abducted Women in Post-conflict Northern Uganda
The women formerly abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda find that achieving meaningful reintegration into their communities is a distant prospect despite being the home culture they once shared. The stigmatisation of formerly abducted persons by…
Research paper
Family dynamics and implications for young people’s ‘struggles’ in rural areas of post-conflict northern Uganda
The Acholi region in northern Uganda experienced two decades of armed conflict and forced displacement. Based on qualitative field research, this article analyses the role of family dynamics for the educational and livelihood trajectories of Acholi youth in rural areas,…
Research paper
The ‘marketplace of post-conflict assistance’ in Northern Uganda and beyond
A diverse body of different actors and stakeholders offers a multitude of services and assistance for conflict-affected communities in Northern Uganda. There are relational and interactional dynamics between providers of services and intended beneficiaries, where there are often a variety…
Research paper
Violent conflict and ethnicity in the Congo: beyond materialism, primordialism and symbolism
This paper investigates the nexus between ethnicity and violent conflict in the Congo. We make three interlocking arguments. First, that ethnicity is a defining political resource in the Congo’s politics and violent conflicts, which we call ‘ethnic capital’. Second, that…
Thesis
Ethnogovernmentality: The Making of Ethnic Territories and Subjects in Eastern Congo
In this article I investigate colonial constructions of ethnicity and territory and their effects in the post-independence period in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. The core argument of the article is that the constructions of ethnicity and territory that…
Blog
Why a South Sudanese NGO had to choose between protecting staff and strangers
This article highlights the risks of working for national rather than international organisations in humanitarian contexts. After the authors’ NGO base was attacked in April 2022, he had to navigate the complex balance between staying safe and saving strangers –…
Blog
How can ethnomusicology support humanitarian protection research?
This article argues that ethnomusicology offers an important approach to understanding issues of participatory humanitarian safety and protection. Using music and dance as a means to better understand people’s ways of life can give insight into the larger cultural contexts…
Research paper
Competing authorities and norms of restraint: governing community-embedded armed groups in South Sudan
How can international humanitarian actors help to restrain the conduct of armed groups when they violate moral, legal and humanitarian norms? Using qualitative and ethnographic research in South Sudan, this article explores patterns of restraint among the gojam and titweng…
Research paper
Legacies of humanitarian neglect: long term experiences of children who returned from the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda
Much has been written about the short-term challenges facing children returning ‘home’ from rebel fighting groups, but little is known about the longer term day to day realities of return. Support for disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) of former combatants…
Research paper
Land is now the biggest gun: climate change and conflict in Karamoja, Uganda
Places that are both recovering from violent conflict and dependent on natural recourses face the overlapping challenges of reducing the risk of recurring conflict, promoting economic recovery, and ensuring sustainable environmental management: all challenges exacerbated by climate change. This article…
Research paper
The Politics of Return: Understanding Trajectories of Displacement and the Complex Dynamics of ‘Return’ in Central and East Africa
This introductory essay reflects on what studies of return can tell us about the ‘life cycle’ of conflict and displacement dynamics in war-affected Central and East Africa, with particular focus on Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, and Uganda.
Research paper
From Rebel to Humanitarian: Military Savoir Faire and Humanitarian Practice in Eastern DR Congo
This article explores the experience of ex-rebels who have become humanitarians in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. It describes how rebel-cum-humanitarians navigate a turbulent political environment, integrating the knowledge they acquired through military experience into a career in…
Research paper
Reluctant Representatives of the State: Teachers’ Perceptions of Experienced Violence (DR Congo)
My qualitative research in South-Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo suggests that teachers link experienced violence to their role as state representatives. Three elements evoke the militia’s distrust: literacy, cell phones, and mobility. Reportedly, militias assume that teachers use these elements…
Research paper
Rejection and Resilience: Returning from the Lord’s Resistance Army in Northern Uganda
This article focuses on young people who returned from the Lord’s Resistance Army in northern Uganda, mostly as children, over ten years ago. Supporting normative models of resilience has exacerbated deprivation of the most vulnerable.
Background report
Crise foncière et réponses des acteurs en République Démocratique du Congo fr
À l’Est de la République démocratique du Congo, le foncier est un réceptacle de violence, participant structurellement à la fragilité de la cohésion sociale. Bien que l’État congolais, les acteurs non étatiques et les bailleurs de fonds se soient engagés…
Background report
Roadblocks ‘at the rhythm of the country’: Predation and beyond in South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo
This report analyses the phenomenon of roadblocks in South Kivu, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Departing from a socio-anthropological approach, the report argues that roadblocks are sites where a variety of state and non-state actors interact with each…
Research paper
Aguu: From Acholi Post War Street Youth and Children to ‘Criminal Gangs’ in Modern Day Gulu City, Uganda
This paper analyses the origin and evolution of the Aguu, a group of street youth/children labelled as a criminal gang operating in the streets of Gulu, Uganda. Based on a series of interviews, focus group discussions, participant observations, archival work…
Book chapter
From violent conflict to slow violence: climate change and post-conflict recovery in Karamoja, Uganda
In literature examining climate change as a potential factor in violent conflict, violence is generally conceived as a readily-apparent, time-bound event. Conversely, the ontologies of slow violence emphasize the insidious ways in which environmental change can, itself, impart violence. This…
Research paper
Geographies of Unease: Witchcraft, Mobility and Insecurity in an African Borderland
This thesis explores processes of transitional justice as post-war social repair. It interrogates the multifarious quests through which Lugbara people of north-west Uganda seek to rebuild their intimate relationships and social lives, with recourse to explanations and therapies for suffering…
Research paper
Sudan’s political marketplace in 2021: Public and political finance, the Juba agreement and contests
This paper examines the continuities and changes in Sudan’s political economy and political marketplace since the popular uprising in 2019 and the subsequent formation of a military-civilian transitional government.
Blog
The ‘real politics’ of taxation in post-revolutionary Sudan
Matthew Benson and, Raga Makawi describe Sudan's tax system and plans to search for domestic tax revenue to respond to economic, political and social uncertainty.
Report
Assessment of communication, community engagement and accountability in Sudan
An assessment of response-wide communication, community engagement and accountability (CCEA) work with the affected population in Sudan.
Research paper
Navigating Social Spaces: Armed Mobilization and Circular Return in Eastern DR Congo
This article discusses the social mobility of combatants and introduces the notion of circular return to explain their pendular state of movement between civilian and combatant life. This phenomenon is widely observed in eastern DRC, where Congolese youth have revolved…
Research paper
The ‘Nuer of Dinka money’ and the demands of the dead: contesting the moral limits of monetised politics in South Sudan
This article explores the meaning of monetary exchanges in politics and political identities during South Sudan’s armed conflicts since 2013, in order to understand whether shifts in the moral meaning of money in politics confer legitimacy to current governmental configurations…
Research paper
Moving Toward ‘Home’: Love and Relationships through War and Displacement
This article calls for greater attention to spatial considerations and proposes the concept of movement as an integral dimension of understanding affinal relationships. This observation is derived from reflections on how the experiences of displacement and return in northern Uganda…
Research paper
Courses au pouvoir: the struggle over customary capital in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo
This article analyses the production and reproduction of traditional chieftaincy in war-torn eastern DRC through the case of a succession dispute in Kalima (South Kivu). Kalima has seen two decades of political instability and violent conflict involving numerous local, national…
Research paper
Home Is Where the Heart Is: Identity, Return and the Toleka Bicycle Taxi Union in Congo’s Equateur
While many ex-combatants in the DRC continue to be re-recruited into militia groups, one group that has reintegrated successfully is the Toleka—a several-thousand-strong group of ex-combatants who returned (or remained) in the provincial capital of Mbandaka (Equateur province). The Toleka…
Background report
Guidance for Applied Cross-National Research in Under-Resourced Countries: Lessons from a Gender-Based Violence Intervention in the Democratic Republic of Congo
Via a personal account of our experiences in conducting a study on a gender-based violence intervention in Congo, we share our lessons and offer recommendations (e.g., using multiple methodologies) for conducting applied cross-national research. We hope that as a result…
Research paper
What Happened to Children Who Returned from the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda?
This article draws on research carried out in 2004–06 and from 2012 to 2018, and compares findings with other publications on reintegration in the region. It argues that implementing best-practice guidelines for relocating displaced children with their immediate relatives had…
Research paper
Training Theories of Mind in Post-conflict Northern Uganda
In this article, I explore how NGOs train local Acholi counselors to work with psychiatric notions of trauma and practice counseling with local clients.
Research paper
Being Normal: Stigmatization of Lord’s Resistance Army Returnees as ‘Moral Experience’ in Post-war Northern Uganda
Focusing instead on the ‘stigmatizers’, this article theorizes stigmatization as part of the ‘moral experience’ of regulating post-war social repair.
A summons to the magistrates’ courts in South Africa and Uganda
The expansive literature on law and justice across Africa emphasizes why people do not use lower state courts. Consequently, a striking lack of attention is paid to how and why people do engage with lower state courts. Drawing on a…
Field notes
The Bukavu Series: Toward a Decolonisation of Research
This is a collection of blog posts produced by 30 researchers based in eastern Congo and Europe, where writers critically reflect on the research they’ve done and explore ethical dilemmas when conducting research in conflict-affected areas.
Background report
Do Local Agreements Forge Peace? The Case of Eastern DRC
The end of the 1998-2003 Congolese war was symbolised by the signing of the ‘All-Inclusive Agreement’ in December 2002. However, due to the continued proliferation of national and foreign armed groups and unaddressed community grievances, this agreement did not bring…
Book chapter
Legacies of Violence: The Communicability of Spirits and Trauma in Northern Uganda
How may the spread of the biomedical concept ‘trauma’ as well as cen spirits in Northern Uganda be understood as part of syndemic processes of situated concerned responses to violence? In this chapter, we examine legacies of mass violence for…
Background report
‘Drought as War’ in Northern Uganda: Exploring the Complex Relationship Between Climate Change, Scarcity, and Conflict
That climate change will increase the incidence of violent conflict is a common claim made by both policymakers and climate change activists. I aim to question and critique the simplistic assertion that climate change will cause increased violent conflict, showing…
