Survival in war-torn Uganda

Abstract

This article describes some of the slippery but very real non-formal aspects of economic life and war in Acholiland, northern Uganda, and attempt, in the words of anthropologist Carolyn Nordstrom, ‘an ethnography of the shadows’ – that is, a description of those frontier realities of power, non-formal economic exchanges and everyday survival. Today’s war in northern Uganda, although fought locally, is international and even global in character. Worldwide flows of imagery, weaponry and humanitarian aid become entangled with local socio-political realities. In narrating a young man’s story of survival, the article shows how internally displaced people in the war zone understand and explain the fact that the international community has become increasingly and inescapably entangled with the politics and practices of this war.