Gender, sexuality, and violence have attracted significant attention in the sphere of humanitarianism in recent years. While this shift builds on the earlier 'Gender and Development' approach and the 'Women, Peace, and Security Agenda', analytical depth is lacking in practice. Notably, 'gender' often means a singular concern for women, neglecting questions of agency and the dynamic and changing realities of gendered power relations. This introductory paper examines why this neglect occurs and proposes a more relational approach to gender. It explores how the contributions to this special issue of Disasters revisit classic gender issues pertaining to violence, livelihoods, and institutions in different settings of humanitarian emergencies, while expanding one's vision beyond them. It draws from the seven papers a number of lessons for humanitarianism, concerning the entangled nature of gender relations, the risks of the unintended effects of gender programming, and the importance of paying sustained attention to how gender relations unfold in a time of crisis.
By 2019, a record high of 79.5 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide as a result of persecution, conflict, violence, and human rights violations (UNHCR 2020a: 2). In the decade leading up to this only a fraction of this number were able to ‘return’ or find a ‘durable solution’. Multiple waves of displacement are common, and ‘return’ often involves far more complicated arrangements than the term suggests. Yet if ‘return’, as a one-directional durable solution is increasingly rare, the need to understand it in difficult and dynamic contexts of precarity and multi-directional mobility, is all the more urgent. 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. ‘Return’ and the ‘returnee’ category is broad and includes former combatants, especially those involved in non-state armed groups. We survey the historical and conceptual background of ‘return’ and its growing prominence in international policy before introducing four areas in which the articles in this special issue contribute to our understanding of internally displaced person, refugee and combatant return dynamics: conceptualizations of home and mobilities; everyday negotiation of belonging; the relationship between return and ‘cycles of violence’; and finally, the ways in which return shapes and re-shapes governance and public authority across settings.
Mango trees, offices and altars: the role of relatives, non-governmental organisations and churches after rape in northern UgandaArticle (Published version) (Refereed)
AbstractThis article reflects on why so many women never access justice or take advantage of available services after rape in northern Uganda. It focuses on roles of three prominent non-governmental actors: lineage-based kinship authority, churches, and nongovernmental organisations examining the parts they played after 94 instances of rape in this study and more broadly, how they have shaped notions of rape and appropriate responses to it. Evidence from this study (participant observation over three years and 187 in-depth interviews) suggests that although non-governmental organizations and churches have impacted evolution of social norms, reactions to wrongdoing are primarily decided by extended family structures, and are subject to a primary value of social harmony.
When it comes to rape in war, evocative language describing rape as a 'weapon of war' has become commonplace. Although politically important, overemphasis on strategic aspects of wartime sexual violence can be misleading. Alternative explanations tend to understand rape either as exceptional -a departure from 'normal' sexual relationships -or as part of a continuum of gendered violence. This article shows how, even in war, norms are not suspended; nor do they simply continue. War changes the moral landscape. Drawing on ethnographic research over 10 years in northern Uganda, this article argues for a re-sexualization of understandings of rape. It posits that sexual mores are central to explaining sexual violence, and that sexual norms -and hence transgressions -vary depending on the moral spaces in which they occur. In Acholi, moral spaces have temporal dimensions ('olden times', the 'time of fighting' and 'these days') and associated spatial dimensions (home, camp, bush, village, town). The dynamics of each help to explain the occurrence of some forms of sexual violence and the rarity of others. By reflecting on sexual norms and transgressions in these moral spaces, the article sheds light on the relationship between 'event' and 'ordinary', rape and war.Development and Change 50(4):
The trial of Thomas Kwoyelo – the first war crimes prosecution of a former Lord's Resistance Army fighter, and the only domestic war crimes prosecution in Uganda at the time of writing – has been packed with drama, intrigue and politics. The article considers what Kwoyelo's trial means for those most affected by the crimes he allegedly committed, and, more broadly, what it means for the ‘transitional justice’ project in Uganda. The article is concerned primarily with how the trial has been interpreted ‘on the ground’ in Acholiland: by local leadership; by those with a personal relationship to Kwoyelo; by direct victims of his alleged crimes; and by those who were not. Responses to the trial have been shaped by people's specific wartime experiences and if or how his prosecution relates to their current circumstances – as well as by the profound value of social harmony and distrust of higher authorities to dispense justice. We conclude with a discussion of the relevance of our findings for the practice of ‘transitional justice’ across the African continent.
This paper draws on fieldwork conducted in 2011 and 2016 to explore the differing experiences of Karamojong women following the Government of Uganda's most recent disarmament programme. Besides being deprived of their guns, Karamojong communities have lost most of the cattle on which their livelihoods and way of life were centred. The study assesses whether or not women's experience of patriarchy has changed in these new circumstances, and, if so, how this impacts on their security and control of resources, or the absence of them. It maps, using information primarily supplied by women, public authorities from below, and evaluates if and how they respond to women's protection and survival needs, as well as if current development/humanitarian interventions are of sustainable benefit to Karamojong women. The paper concludes that apparent shifts in gender relations are probably superficial, contingent on continuing food aid, and that economic development and positive social change for women remain elusive.
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