4 - Transcultural Memory in Post-Conflict Northern Uganda War Commemorations
Africa Development,
Vol. 46 No. 4 (2021): Africa Development
Abstract
This article draws from debates on the transcultural turn in memory studies, exploring the multiple ways in which memory unfolds in post-war contexts and across cultures. Using interviews, ethnography and secondary sources, it builds on research critical of how specific post-war experiences in African societies are framed and subsumed into global memory practices and transmission, particularly in the global North. The article finds that, while on the surface memorials and rituals appear to be influenced by Euro-American-centric memory transmission practices, a deeper examination of commemorations in Northern Uganda reveals that processes of commemorating the past are complex and multi-layered. It argues that indigenous gatekeepers and keepers of memory are engaged in a dynamic process of creating something new out of the ruins of the past (Mbembe 2020). Local contexts allow for the examination of nuanced experiences and practices that should also be part of the knowledge of universal experience, leading us to rethink the relationship between what are referred to as universal models of remembering and their appropriation at the local level. This study proposes thinking differently about what constitutes this hybridity, especially local actors’ strategic use of their available resources to meet their memorialisation needs and to find meaning in mnemonic rituals and spaces, in post-conflict countries.
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- Adesanmi, P., 2012, You’re Not a Country, Africa, Cape Town: Penguin Random House South Africa.
- African Arguments, 2012, 'Resources on Uganda, the LRA and Central Africa', African Arguments, 12 March. Available online at: https://africanarguments.
- org/2012/03/29/association-of-concerned-african-scholars-resources-on-uganda-the-lra-and-central-africa/. Accessed 1 July 2020.
- Ali, F. A., 2017, 'Women’s Agency And Violence Against Women: The Case of the Coalition on Violence Against Women in Kenya', African Conflict andPeacebuilding Review, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 51–65.
- Allen, T. and Vlassenroot, K., 2010, The Lord’s Resistance Army: Myth and Reality, London, UK: Zed Books.
- Amone, C., and Muura, O., 2014, 'British colonialism and the creation of Acholi ethnic identity in Uganda, 1894 to 1962', The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Vol. 42, No. 2, pp. 239–257.
- Assmann, J., 2006, Religion and Cultural Memory, trans. Livingstone, R., Stanford, CT: Stanford University Press.
- Assmann, J., 2011, 'Communicative and Cultural Memory', in Meusburger P., Heffernan, M., Wunder, E., eds, Cultural Memories. Knowledge and Space (Klaus Tschira Symposia), Vol 4. Dordrecht: Springer Nature, pp. 15–27.
- Atkinson, R. R., 1994, The Roots Of Ethnicity: The Origins Of The Acholi Of Uganda Before 1800, Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
- Baines, E. K., 2007, 'The Haunting of Alice: Local Approaches to Justice and Reconciliation in Northern Uganda', The International Journal of Transitional Justice, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 91–114.
- Baines, E. K., 2010a, 'Uganda: In-Between War and Peace', African Studies Review, Vol. 53, No. 1, pp. 143–148.
- Baines, E. K., 2010b, 'Spirits and Social Reconstruction After Mass Violence: Rethinking Transitional Justice', African Affairs, Vol. 109, No. 436, pp. 409–430.
- Baines, E. K., 2017, Buried In The Heart: Women, Complex Victimhood and the War in Northern Uganda, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
- Bisoka, A. N., 2019, 'Hybrid Governance And Land Management In Eastern DRC: Beyond Apparent Hybridity', in De Herdt, T. and Titeca, K., eds, Negotiating Public Services In The Congo: State, Society And Governance, London, UK: Zed Books.
- Blair, T., 2001, 'Speech given at the Labour Party conference, 2 October'. Available online at https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/oct/02/labourconference. labour6.
- Bond, L., and Rapson, J., eds., 2014, 'The Transcultural Turn: Interrogating Memory Between and Beyond Borders', in Media and Cultural Memory, Vol. 15, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
- Branch, A., 2009, 'Humanitarianism, Violence, and the Camp in Northern Uganda', Civil Wars, Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 477–501.
- Branch, A., 2011, Displacing Human Rights: War And Intervention In Northern Uganda, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Chakrabarty, D., 2008, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial thought and historical difference, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
- Chilisa, B., and Tsheko, G. N., 2014, 'Mixed Methods In Indigenous Research: Building Relationships for Sustainable Intervention Outcomes', Journal of Mixed Methods Research, Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 222–233.
- Clark, P., 2018, Distant Justice: The Impact Of The International Criminal Court On African Politics, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
- Cole, T., 2012, 'The White-Savior Industrial Complex', The Atlantic, 21 March.
- Curtis, D. E., 2019, 'What Is Our Research For? Responsibility, Humanity and The Production of Knowledge About Burundi', Africa Spectrum, Vol. 54, pp. 4–21. Daley, P., 2013, 'Rescuing African Bodies: Celebrities, Consumerism and Neoliberal Humanitarianism', Review of African Political Economy, Vol. 40, No. 137, pp. 375–393.
- Divon, S. A. and Owor, A., 2021, 'Aguu: From Acholi Post War Street Youth and Children to ‘Criminal Gangs’ in Modern Day Gulu City, Uganda', Journal of Human Security, Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 82–96.
- Dolan, C., 2009, Social Torture: The Case Of Northern Uganda, 1986–2006, Vol. 4, Oxford: Berghahn Books.
- Elgerud, L.M. and Kim, M., 2020, 'Mapping the Intangible: Forensic Human Rights Documentation in Post-Conflict Uganda', The International Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 1, No. 22.
- Erll, A., 2011, 'Travelling Memory', Parallax, Vol. 17, No. 4, pp. 4–18. Finnström, S., 2008, Living with Bad Surroundings: War, History, And Everyday Moments In Northern Uganda, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
- Finnström, S., 2010, Reconciliation Grown Bitter? War, Retribution, And Ritual Action In Northern Uganda, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
- Fisher, J., 2020, East Africa after Liberation: Conflict, Security And The State Since The 1980s, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
- Gilroy, P., 1993, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double-Consciousness, Princeton, NJ: Harvard University Press.
- Gobodo-Madikizela, P., 2012, 'Remembering The Past: Nostalgia, Traumatic Memory, and the Legacy of Apartheid', Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, Vol. 18, No. 3, p. 252.
- González, O., 2013, 'Silence and Absence Made Visible: Arts and Memorials for the Disappeared of Peru', Anthropology Now, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 74–91.
- Halbwachs, M., 1925, Les Cadres Sociaux de la Mémoire, Paris: Alcan.
- Hepner, T. R., 2020, 'At the Boundaries of Life and Death: Notes on Eritrea and Northern Uganda', African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp.127–142.
- Hepner, T., 'Steadman, D. W. and Hanebrink, J. R., 2018, Sowing the Dead: Massacres and the Missing in Northern Uganda', American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Vol. 159, pp. 136–154.
- Hollander, T., 2016, Ambiguous Loss And Complicated Grief: Understanding The Grief Of Parents Of The Disappeared In Northern Uganda, Journal of Family Theory and Review, Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 294–307.
- Ibreck, R., 2012, 'The Politics Of Mourning: Survivor Contributions To Memorials In Post-Genocide Rwanda', Memory Studies, Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 330–343.
- Ikpe, E., 2007, 'Challenging the Discourse on Fragile States', Conflict, Security and Development, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 85–124.
- International Committee of the Red Cross, 2017, Missing in Uganda: Holding on to hope. Available online at https://www.icrc.org/en/document/missing-in-uganda. Accessed 6 July 2020.
- Mwambari: Transcultural Memory in Post-Conflict Northern Uganda 93
- International Justice Monitor, 2018, Justice for Victims of Enforced Disappearances in Uganda Overdue. Available online at https://www.ijmonitor.org/2018/08/justice-for-victims-of-enforced-disappearances-in-uganda-overdue/. Accessed 20 June 2020.
- Ismail, O. and Alao, A., 2007, 'Youths in the Interface of Development and Security', Conflict, Security and Development, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 3–25.
- Jessee, E., 2017, Negotiating Genocide in Rwanda: The Politics Of History, Dordrecht: Springer International.
- Justice and Reconciliation Project Report (JRP), 2011, The Lukodi Massacre: 19th May 2004 FNXIII.
- Available online at https://www.justiceandreconciliation. org/tag/field-note/. Accessed 10 May 2021.
- Kebede, M., 2004, Africa’s Quest for a Philosophy of Decolonization, Leiden: Brill Rodopi.
- Kim, J. and Hepner, T. R., 2019, 'Of Justice and the Grave: The Role of the Dead in Post-Conflict Uganda', International Criminal Law Review, Vol. 19, No. 5, pp. 819–843.
- Komakech, L., 2012, 'Traditional Justice as a Form of Adjudication in Uganda', in Okello, M., Dolan, C., Whande, U., Mncwabe, N. and Oola, S., eds, Where Law Meets Reality: Forging African Transitional Justice, London, UK: Pambazuka Press, pp. 64–79.
- Komujuni, S. and Büscher, K., 2020, 'In Search of Chiefly Authority in ‘Post-Aid’ Acholiland: Transformations of Customary Authorities in Northern Uganda', Journal of Eastern African Studies, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 103–124.
- Kotzé, E., Els, L. and Rajuili-Masilo, N., 2012. ''Women … Mourn And Men Carry On': African Women Storying Mourning Practices: A South African Example', Death Studies, Vol. 36, No. 8, pp. 742–766.
- Lee, R. and Vaughan, M., 2008, 'Death and Dying in the History of Africa Since 1800', The Journal of African History, Vol. 49, No. 3, pp. 341–359.
- Longman, T., 2017, Memory And Justice In Post-Genocide Rwanda, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
- Macdonald, A., 2019, ‘‘Somehow This Whole Process Became So Artificial’: Exploring the Transitional Justice Implementation Gap in Uganda’, International Journal of Transitional Justice, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 225–248.
- Mamdani, M., 2009, Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, And The War On Terror, New York: Crown Publishers.
- Mbembe, A., 2020, Brutalisme, Paris: Éditions La Découverte.
- Meert, A., 2020, 'Suffering, Consent, and Coercion in Uganda: The Luwero War, 1981–1986', International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 53, No. 3. Munyi, E. M., Mwambari, D. and Ylönen, A., eds, 2020, Beyond History: African Agency in Development, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution, Vol. 1, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
- Mwambari, D., 2017, 'Women-Led Non-Governmental Organizations and Peacebuilding In Rwanda', African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review, Vol. 7, Vol. 1, pp. 66–79.
References
Adesanmi, P., 2012, You’re Not a Country, Africa, Cape Town: Penguin Random House South Africa.
African Arguments, 2012, 'Resources on Uganda, the LRA and Central Africa', African Arguments, 12 March. Available online at: https://africanarguments.
org/2012/03/29/association-of-concerned-african-scholars-resources-on-uganda-the-lra-and-central-africa/. Accessed 1 July 2020.
Ali, F. A., 2017, 'Women’s Agency And Violence Against Women: The Case of the Coalition on Violence Against Women in Kenya', African Conflict andPeacebuilding Review, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 51–65.
Allen, T. and Vlassenroot, K., 2010, The Lord’s Resistance Army: Myth and Reality, London, UK: Zed Books.
Amone, C., and Muura, O., 2014, 'British colonialism and the creation of Acholi ethnic identity in Uganda, 1894 to 1962', The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Vol. 42, No. 2, pp. 239–257.
Assmann, J., 2006, Religion and Cultural Memory, trans. Livingstone, R., Stanford, CT: Stanford University Press.
Assmann, J., 2011, 'Communicative and Cultural Memory', in Meusburger P., Heffernan, M., Wunder, E., eds, Cultural Memories. Knowledge and Space (Klaus Tschira Symposia), Vol 4. Dordrecht: Springer Nature, pp. 15–27.
Atkinson, R. R., 1994, The Roots Of Ethnicity: The Origins Of The Acholi Of Uganda Before 1800, Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Baines, E. K., 2007, 'The Haunting of Alice: Local Approaches to Justice and Reconciliation in Northern Uganda', The International Journal of Transitional Justice, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 91–114.
Baines, E. K., 2010a, 'Uganda: In-Between War and Peace', African Studies Review, Vol. 53, No. 1, pp. 143–148.
Baines, E. K., 2010b, 'Spirits and Social Reconstruction After Mass Violence: Rethinking Transitional Justice', African Affairs, Vol. 109, No. 436, pp. 409–430.
Baines, E. K., 2017, Buried In The Heart: Women, Complex Victimhood and the War in Northern Uganda, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Bisoka, A. N., 2019, 'Hybrid Governance And Land Management In Eastern DRC: Beyond Apparent Hybridity', in De Herdt, T. and Titeca, K., eds, Negotiating Public Services In The Congo: State, Society And Governance, London, UK: Zed Books.
Blair, T., 2001, 'Speech given at the Labour Party conference, 2 October'. Available online at https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/oct/02/labourconference. labour6.
Bond, L., and Rapson, J., eds., 2014, 'The Transcultural Turn: Interrogating Memory Between and Beyond Borders', in Media and Cultural Memory, Vol. 15, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Branch, A., 2009, 'Humanitarianism, Violence, and the Camp in Northern Uganda', Civil Wars, Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 477–501.
Branch, A., 2011, Displacing Human Rights: War And Intervention In Northern Uganda, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Chakrabarty, D., 2008, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial thought and historical difference, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Chilisa, B., and Tsheko, G. N., 2014, 'Mixed Methods In Indigenous Research: Building Relationships for Sustainable Intervention Outcomes', Journal of Mixed Methods Research, Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 222–233.
Clark, P., 2018, Distant Justice: The Impact Of The International Criminal Court On African Politics, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Cole, T., 2012, 'The White-Savior Industrial Complex', The Atlantic, 21 March.
Curtis, D. E., 2019, 'What Is Our Research For? Responsibility, Humanity and The Production of Knowledge About Burundi', Africa Spectrum, Vol. 54, pp. 4–21. Daley, P., 2013, 'Rescuing African Bodies: Celebrities, Consumerism and Neoliberal Humanitarianism', Review of African Political Economy, Vol. 40, No. 137, pp. 375–393.
Divon, S. A. and Owor, A., 2021, 'Aguu: From Acholi Post War Street Youth and Children to ‘Criminal Gangs’ in Modern Day Gulu City, Uganda', Journal of Human Security, Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 82–96.
Dolan, C., 2009, Social Torture: The Case Of Northern Uganda, 1986–2006, Vol. 4, Oxford: Berghahn Books.
Elgerud, L.M. and Kim, M., 2020, 'Mapping the Intangible: Forensic Human Rights Documentation in Post-Conflict Uganda', The International Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 1, No. 22.
Erll, A., 2011, 'Travelling Memory', Parallax, Vol. 17, No. 4, pp. 4–18. Finnström, S., 2008, Living with Bad Surroundings: War, History, And Everyday Moments In Northern Uganda, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Finnström, S., 2010, Reconciliation Grown Bitter? War, Retribution, And Ritual Action In Northern Uganda, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Fisher, J., 2020, East Africa after Liberation: Conflict, Security And The State Since The 1980s, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Gilroy, P., 1993, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double-Consciousness, Princeton, NJ: Harvard University Press.
Gobodo-Madikizela, P., 2012, 'Remembering The Past: Nostalgia, Traumatic Memory, and the Legacy of Apartheid', Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, Vol. 18, No. 3, p. 252.
González, O., 2013, 'Silence and Absence Made Visible: Arts and Memorials for the Disappeared of Peru', Anthropology Now, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 74–91.
Halbwachs, M., 1925, Les Cadres Sociaux de la Mémoire, Paris: Alcan.
Hepner, T. R., 2020, 'At the Boundaries of Life and Death: Notes on Eritrea and Northern Uganda', African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp.127–142.
Hepner, T., 'Steadman, D. W. and Hanebrink, J. R., 2018, Sowing the Dead: Massacres and the Missing in Northern Uganda', American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Vol. 159, pp. 136–154.
Hollander, T., 2016, Ambiguous Loss And Complicated Grief: Understanding The Grief Of Parents Of The Disappeared In Northern Uganda, Journal of Family Theory and Review, Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 294–307.
Ibreck, R., 2012, 'The Politics Of Mourning: Survivor Contributions To Memorials In Post-Genocide Rwanda', Memory Studies, Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 330–343.
Ikpe, E., 2007, 'Challenging the Discourse on Fragile States', Conflict, Security and Development, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 85–124.
International Committee of the Red Cross, 2017, Missing in Uganda: Holding on to hope. Available online at https://www.icrc.org/en/document/missing-in-uganda. Accessed 6 July 2020.
Mwambari: Transcultural Memory in Post-Conflict Northern Uganda 93
International Justice Monitor, 2018, Justice for Victims of Enforced Disappearances in Uganda Overdue. Available online at https://www.ijmonitor.org/2018/08/justice-for-victims-of-enforced-disappearances-in-uganda-overdue/. Accessed 20 June 2020.
Ismail, O. and Alao, A., 2007, 'Youths in the Interface of Development and Security', Conflict, Security and Development, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 3–25.
Jessee, E., 2017, Negotiating Genocide in Rwanda: The Politics Of History, Dordrecht: Springer International.
Justice and Reconciliation Project Report (JRP), 2011, The Lukodi Massacre: 19th May 2004 FNXIII.
Available online at https://www.justiceandreconciliation. org/tag/field-note/. Accessed 10 May 2021.
Kebede, M., 2004, Africa’s Quest for a Philosophy of Decolonization, Leiden: Brill Rodopi.
Kim, J. and Hepner, T. R., 2019, 'Of Justice and the Grave: The Role of the Dead in Post-Conflict Uganda', International Criminal Law Review, Vol. 19, No. 5, pp. 819–843.
Komakech, L., 2012, 'Traditional Justice as a Form of Adjudication in Uganda', in Okello, M., Dolan, C., Whande, U., Mncwabe, N. and Oola, S., eds, Where Law Meets Reality: Forging African Transitional Justice, London, UK: Pambazuka Press, pp. 64–79.
Komujuni, S. and Büscher, K., 2020, 'In Search of Chiefly Authority in ‘Post-Aid’ Acholiland: Transformations of Customary Authorities in Northern Uganda', Journal of Eastern African Studies, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 103–124.
Kotzé, E., Els, L. and Rajuili-Masilo, N., 2012. ''Women … Mourn And Men Carry On': African Women Storying Mourning Practices: A South African Example', Death Studies, Vol. 36, No. 8, pp. 742–766.
Lee, R. and Vaughan, M., 2008, 'Death and Dying in the History of Africa Since 1800', The Journal of African History, Vol. 49, No. 3, pp. 341–359.
Longman, T., 2017, Memory And Justice In Post-Genocide Rwanda, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Macdonald, A., 2019, ‘‘Somehow This Whole Process Became So Artificial’: Exploring the Transitional Justice Implementation Gap in Uganda’, International Journal of Transitional Justice, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 225–248.
Mamdani, M., 2009, Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, And The War On Terror, New York: Crown Publishers.
Mbembe, A., 2020, Brutalisme, Paris: Éditions La Découverte.
Meert, A., 2020, 'Suffering, Consent, and Coercion in Uganda: The Luwero War, 1981–1986', International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 53, No. 3. Munyi, E. M., Mwambari, D. and Ylönen, A., eds, 2020, Beyond History: African Agency in Development, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution, Vol. 1, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Mwambari, D., 2017, 'Women-Led Non-Governmental Organizations and Peacebuilding In Rwanda', African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review, Vol. 7, Vol. 1, pp. 66–79.