Research Articles

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Browsing Research Articles by Author "Komakech, Daniel"

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    Cow Economy: Reconstituting the Balalo Cow Economy Debate
    (RM Transitional Communities Research Discussion Paper Series., 2023-04-01) Komakech, Daniel
    Drawing from the current debate on nomadic pastoralists, particularly on the Balalo, we observe that the bigger problem is that, the Balalo and the nomadic pastoralists’ cow economy, are not able to articulate the rationale of their occupation from a policy language. Besides, nomadic pastoralist economy has since been an informal and not a formal sector and consequently, not understood and considered therefore as economically unviable. We argue that nomadic pastoralist economy is nevertheless, a system that is not anarchic or backward and therefore, not different from other modes of the economy. As a system, it is coherent and rational, with different parts, including a grazing corridor, which once disturbed results into multiple challenges. This is what we are witnessing today, with the case of the Balalo nomadic pastoralists. Similarly, the social, economic and ecological features that enable pastoralist economy and the contribution of the pastoralists to the national economy cannot be considered in isolation, because it is an integrated system. The indigenous economy and knowledge as well as scientific / capitalist economy and knowledge, are all co-existent within the landscape of cow economy. For example, the ecological value of cow and animal movements has been observed as extremely important. Consequently, there is a need to establish: Uganda Livestock Authority (ULA) and a research based Uganda Livestock Research Institute (ULRI), to reinforce the appreciation of nomadic pastoralists as well as, cow economy.
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    The gendered postconflict city: Possibilities for more livable urban transformations in Gulu, northern Uganda
    (Journal of Urban Affairs, 2022-08-10) Harris, John C.; Komakech, Daniel; Monk, David; Davidson, Maria del Guadalupe
    Scholars acknowledge that postconflict urbanism is undertheorized and underdeveloped for practical governance or sustainable urban management, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, which has unfortunately experienced significant conflict in the post-independence period. We argue that postconflict redevelopment theory and practice under appreciates liminal spaces and the precarious existence of postconflict people, especially postconflict women. We examine the extant literature on Gulu, Uganda, to develop theory and urban management concepts around the notion of the gendered postconflict city as a unique urban identity and re-center the analysis on the everyday experiences, agency, and city building practices of women. We posit three realities for understanding the gendered postconflict city: (1) the postconflict gendered city is a liminal space beyond the notions of contingency and fluidity often assigned to African cities, (2) it is a place of deep and abiding trauma, and (3) it is a place of invisibility and precarity for women who selforganize to reduce precarity. We make a series of recommendations for postconflict urban management based on these realities that include recognizing liminality in postconflict planning and setting aside the impulse to prioritize the global competitiveness of postconflict cities above all else. These have important implications for NGO and national development practices.
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    The hard work of reparative futures: Exploring the potential of creative and convivial practices in post-conflict Uganda
    (Elsevier, 2023) Moles, Kate; Anek, Florence; Baker, Will; Komakech, Daniel; Owor, Arthur; Pennell, Catriona; Rowsell, Jennifer
    In this paper we empirically explore the ways in which young people were enroled in a multimodal exhibition to creatively produce narratives of their past, presents and futures. We look at the different ways this work was framed, and how all memory work and, we argue, future work is relational, interactionally produced and situated in dynamic and unfolding social and political frameworks. We look at the ways young people described the work of producing accounts of their futures within that setting, and the different forms of labour involved in that process. We explore the encounters that fostered local, more humble, acts of care and repair, and how those everyday practices might help build towards reparative futures.
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    Imagining futures/future imaginings: creative heritage work with young people in Uganda
    (Journal of the British Academy, 2023-11-02) Moles, Kate; Baker, Will; Nono, Francis; Komakech, Daniel; Owor, Arthur ; Anek, Florence; Pennell, Catriona; Rowsell, Jennifer
    Drawing on research in Uganda, we describe our project in which we invited young people to think about their lives in ways that opened up creative and hopeful imaginaries of the future. We understand future imaginary work to be a significant part of memory work. An important component in the ways we think about the past is imagining the futures it ties to. We wanted the idea of the future to be something our young participants constructed together, in dialogue and iteratively, so that the project had a sense of collaboration and shared interests. To do so we developed the idea of a touring exhibition through which multiple voices, positions, understandings and values could be accommodated side by side. The article contributes to scholarly and public debates about reparations and memorialisation, particularly by showing the crucial role young people can play in articulating more just futures.
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    Two marriages, two speeds: Disruptions and connections in post-conflict Gulu cityscape
    (Journal of Sociology and Development, 2021-12-15) Komakech, Daniel
    Drawing from urban studies and conflict studies with specific focus on transitional justice sphere of return and reintegration, the paper elaborates on the existing complex disruptions and connections in coupling among former Lord’s Resistance Army returnees in Gulu city, northern Uganda. Deploying new conceptual tools, namely, the materiality and vitality of “kavera (polythene bag) that the men instrumentalise to negotiate a relationship with the women and also how women use “browning” technique (a metaphor built on a local emphasis on “brown is beautiful”) to attract and retain men, we think through coupling in the post-conflict Gulu cityscape to understand and enhance the complex dynamics involved and negotiated, making coupling among the returnees, fleeting and therefore, swinging in a centrifugal manner. Consequently, we contend that coupling amongst the returnees in the everyday cityscape of Gulu is open-ended and that the concept and the persons oscillate between "narrowing and expansion, ambiguity and precision” (AbdouMaliq and Pieterse 2017: x). In that sense, both the concept and the persons are elusive and has its own logic, with its terms of reference expanding and contracting as far as it can bend (AbdouMaliq and Pieterse 2017: 159). Therefore, instead of a normative or ideals of coupling, rather, we should think in terms of the everyday production and practices of ‘couple-making’.