This chapter interrogates historical processes with war and displacement resulting from armed rebellion between the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the government of Uganda between 1987-2007 that created contesting notions of being Acholi. The chapter shows how Acholi war trajectories experienced through taking refuge amongst other societies, conscription into warfare of mainly child abductees, and encampment divided the current Acholi into new imaginaries and solidarities. Lasting for over two decades, the LRA war led to the emergence of different cultures based on the different life pathways that Acholi took during violence and displacement: the culture of camps or IDPs (donation, food aid, governmental/humanitarian organizations' assistance) and the culture of war (forceful abduction of children and recruitment into rebel forces and militias).
This concluding chapter discusses the reinforcement of the affective capacity building among dispersed transnational communities within the three cases presented earlier in this book. The first case explores how migrant organisations of Haitian origin engagement in Parisian banlieues is beneficial to their homeland's development. The second case is from the village of Jaziret Fadel that has the biggest gathering of Palestinian who fled to Egypt since the outbreak of 1948 war. It emphasizes the exploration of their new technique of 'killing memory' to gain acceptance, belonging and create a new sense of home within a new spatial context. The third case focuses on how the Northern Uganda war between the LRA and the Ugandan Army (1987-2007) has formulated the Acholi's experience with war, violence, and flight, which has led to different local constructions of place, political belonging, and material and emotional connections. Accordingly, will such communities be able to survive for a future on their own? Will memory to trace their genealogy fuel a sense of belonging after displacement? For what sort of citizenship within their new place?
This chapter focuses on how the Northern Uganda war between the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan Army (1987-2008) reformulated Acholi people's local construction of place, political belonging, material, and emotional connections. In other words, how historical processes with war, flight, and displacement reshaped meaning of being Acholi in Northern Uganda. The two-decade period of war in Northern Uganda (1986-2008) led to the displacement of Acholi people both internally and externally. Almost the whole population of Acholiland were affected by the LRA insurgency that dismantled societal structures that had for long anchored Acholi culture. During this turbulent period, Acholi people lived in camps and in the neighboring countries, especially Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Central African Republic (CAR), and Kenya, among others. This gives this conflict a cross-border dimension.
This chapter demonstrates how the Acholi people of Northern Uganda respond to health emergencies in a culturally specific way. It emphasizes their cultural construction of health, healthcare, and disease, including how they get along with/react to new challenges as in the case of corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19). It emphasizes Acholi notion of gemo as a disease management strategy/community alert system, which is about collective concern to identify and deal with any threat such as epidemic or pandemic in a culturally specific manner. Thus, cultural borders and boundaries may be created by the Acholi as a protective measure against visitors, foreigners, or those who travel/stay away for from Acholi land for long period of time to separate new comers who could be ‘contaminated'.
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