We shall secede…’ - narratives of marginalisation in post war participatory recovery of Acholi, northern Uganda

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dc.contributor.authorSulayman Babiiha, Mpisi
dc.date.accessioned2022-04-22T09:05:15Z
dc.date.available2022-04-22T09:05:15Z
dc.date.issued2018
dc.descriptionAt the time the ceasefire agreement between rebels of the Lords’ Resistance Army (LRA) and the government of Uganda was signed in 2006, the number of people that had been forced into Internally Displaced People’s (IDP) camps across the northern region had risen to more than 1.8 million, about 90% of the country’s population (Mabikke 2011: 3; Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre and Norwegian Refugee Council 2009: 4), up from 1.3 million in 2005 (Boas and Hatloy 2005: 1). Although all their homesteads had been reclaimed by bush, their houses destroyed, and the majority of them had lost their livelihood assets, especially livestock (Boas and Hatloy 2005: 1, Weeks 2002: 32-35, Gersony 1997: 81, Gelsdorf, Maxwell and Mazurana 2012: 2), in 2008, all IDP camps were decommissioned by the State and IDPs told to ‘return to where the war found you’ (Whyte, Babiiha, Mukyala, and Meinert 2012: 3). With the economy of the region in ruins, poverty was widespread, yet houses needed to be repaired or rebuilt, homesteads re-established and fields prepared for cultivation (Obika, Otto-Adel, Babiiha and Whyte, forthcoming) as part of re-establishing household food and livelihood security. By the time I started conducting this study in 2009, WFP and other relief agencies had already stopped distributing relief food and other basic necessities to those who still remained in the numerous IDP camps across the region, citing lack of resources (UN-RSG of IDPs 29 July, 2009); yet even for those that had gone back to the villages the situation was not any better. Basic services such as education, health, and clean water were yet to be restored to these villages, and where they were already being provided they were quite inadequate, resulting in some categories of community members remaining in the camps (Whyte et al 2012: 2-4, IDMC and NRC 2009: 4-7). Rebel leader Joseph Kony’s reluctance to sign the comprehensive peace agreement scared local communities into thinking that the relative peace experienced in the region during the peaceen_US
dc.description.abstractSet in a remote part of Acholi, on the northern side of Murchison Falls National Park, northern Uganda, this paper focuses on the efforts of the local community in Pabit Parish as they rebuild their agricultural livelihoods in the aftermath of the 20-year civil war. Their struggle to recover, however, hung in the balance as problem animals started to destroy their crops. Their recovery became even more uncertain when their efforts to dialogue with the government about the unfair wildlife policy remained unheeded. Meanwhile, the Acholi Culture and Tourism Centre project set up by Purongo Sub County Local Government to supplement the people’s agricultural livelihoods was marred in conflicts that threatened its very existence. What had started as a post war participatory development thus turned out to be an arena of conflict.Using ethnographic methods of data collection integrated within a case study, this study focuses on the tourism centre project. Premised on principles of participation, the project had been considered instrumental, not only in the protection of wildlife in Murchison Falls Park which would attract more tourists, and thus more revenue to the community from commercial tourism, but also through promoting agricultural livelihoods, the mainstay of the local economy. However, the reluctance of wildlife officials to engage communities in policy discussions, and internal weaknesses in the governance structural systems, combine to frustrate efforts in the local community to recover their livelihoods for a better standard of living.en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipThe study is part of a DANIDA funded PhD research under the Building Stronger Universities Project at Gulu University, northern Uganda.en_US
dc.identifier.issn2246-8838
dc.identifier.urihttps://ir.gu.ac.ug/xmlui/handle/20.500.14270/139
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherA Journal of Language, Culture and Communicationen_US
dc.relation.ispartofseries6;
dc.subjectAgricultural livelihoods, post war recovery, marginalisation, participation, wildlife policyen_US
dc.titleWe shall secede…’ - narratives of marginalisation in post war participatory recovery of Acholi, northern Ugandaen_US
dc.typeArticleen_US

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