Holly E. Porter

Justice and rape on the periphery: the supremacy of social harmony in the space between local solutions and formal judicial systems in northern Uganda

Abstract In the Acholi sub-region of Uganda, historically and geographically peripheral since the colonial era and the epicenter of over 20 years of war – there is a peculiar manifestation of what appear to be contradictory phenomena: brutally violent retribution and extraordinary forgiveness. This article suggests that both responses to wrongdoing are motivated by the same supremely important value of social harmony. The article focuses on one crime, rape, and examines what justice means for Acholi women in the vacuum of justice created by the decayed state of former local methods of responding to wrongdoing and the still inadequate role and legitimacy of Ugandas judicial system and the International Criminal Court. The research indicates that notions of appropriate punishment are oriented by the degree to which the perpetrator is seen as important to future social harmony. The various responses to rape are a product of dynamics in the justice gap, and, I want to suggest, are illustrative of responses to crime or wrongdoing more generally. The article highlights the centrality of two integral aspects of lived Acholi reality: there is a profound value of social harmony, and a deep distrust of higher authorities to dispense justice in their interest. Womens experiences after rape in this study underscore the importance of an arbiter of injustice that has earned moral jurisdiction on a local level. When authority is recognized and trusted, parties typically accept the outcome of arbitration, restoring broken social harmony. However, without moral jurisdiction, outcomes of such processes are viewed with suspicion and usually exacerbate existing tensions.

Mango trees, offices and altars: the role of relatives, non-governmental organisations and churches after rape in northern Uganda

This 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.

Resilient patriarchy: public authority and women's (in)security in Karamoja, Uganda

This paper draws on fieldwork conducted in 2011 and 2016 to explore the differing experiences of Karamojong women following the Government of Ugandas 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 womens 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 womens 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.

Dirty things: spiritual pollution and life after the Lord’s Resistance Army

ABSTRACT In post-war northern Uganda (as elsewhere), the reintegration of ex-combatants into their home communities is an ongoing process that involves long-term social and spiritual labour. The “re” of “reintegration,” however, might falsely assume a static and cohesive Acholi cosmology within which the parameters of such labours are clearly defined. Pathways taken with the goal of lessening suffering caused by war are tread by Acholi civilians and ex-combatants alike, and the ways former Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) fighters attempt to alleviate spiritual distress illuminate wider struggles for moral authority in everyday life. These practices are embedded in cosmologies which, though predating the 20 years of violent upheaval that ended in 2006, are sites of contestation where the politics of belief and doubt are played out. 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. The labour of ex-combatants and their communities to alleviate spiritual suffering demonstrates how ritual practices both challenge and uphold the power of moral authorities. In the wider context of post-war sociality in Acholi, effective and socially acceptable alleviation of spiritual suffering is contested, processual, and highly constrained by material resources and perceptions of ritual legitimacy. The practices of belief and doubt are not only a matter of metaphysics or ontology, but of shifts in worldly power.