Synopses & Reviews
Since 1986, the Acholi people of northern Uganda have lived in the crossfire of a violent civil war, with the Lordandrsquo;s Resistance Army and other groups fighting the Ugandan government. Acholi have been murdered, maimed, and driven into displacement. Thousands of children have been abducted and forced to fight. Many observers have perceived Acholiland and northern Uganda to be an exception in contemporary Uganda, which has been celebrated by the international community for its increased political stability and particularly for its fight against AIDS. These observers tend to portray the Acholi as war-prone, whether because of religious fanaticism or intractable ethnic hatreds. In
Living with Bad Surroundings, Sverker Finnstrandouml;m rejects these characterizations and challenges other simplistic explanations for the violence in northern Uganda. Foregrounding the narratives of individual Acholi, Finnstrandouml;m enables those most affected by the ongoing andldquo;dirty warandrdquo; to explain how they participate in, comprehend, survive, and even resist it.
Finnstrandouml;m draws on fieldwork conducted in northern Uganda between 1997 and 2006 to describe how the Acholiandmdash;especially the younger generation, those born into the era of civil strifeandmdash;understand and attempt to control their moral universe and material circumstances. Structuring his argument around indigenous metaphors and images, notably the Acholi concepts of good and bad surroundings, he vividly renders struggles in war and the related ills of impoverishment, sickness, and marginalization. In this rich ethnography, Finnstrandouml;m provides a clear-eyed assessment of the historical, cultural, and political underpinnings of the civil war while maintaining his focus on Acholi efforts to achieve andldquo;good surroundings,andrdquo; viable futures for themselves and their families.
Review
andldquo;Living with Bad Surroundings . . . [is] a very good book, perhaps the best written on northern Uganda since the 1970s. It will be an ideal text for courses dealing with Africa and the local realities of modern armed conflicts.andrdquo; - Tim Allen, Times Literary Supplement
Review
andldquo;[An] insightful, compelling ethnography. . . . Finnstrandouml;m has important things to say about ethnographic intimacy, the phenomenology of fieldwork, and the universality of culture as human existence. The book offers a fine example of the merits of local, detailed ethnographic knowledge for understanding civilian life in a warzone, as well as glimpses of the emotional connections an anthropologist forms with
informants and collaborators.andrdquo; - Catherine Besteman, American Ethnologist
Review
andldquo;I recommend it to anyone wanting to understand the problematic side of Africa. It reads more like the writing of a good and thoughtful war correspondent rather than a traditional social scientist. It what is useful and appropriate for understanding the world of contemporary northern Ugandans whom the author clearly liked and cared about.andrdquo; - T.O. Beidelman, Anthropos
Review
andldquo;Finnstrandouml;mandrsquo;s analysis of the factors involved in the devastating conflict in Northern Uganda between the Ugandan government and the Lordandrsquo;s Resistance Army (LRA) is a valuable contribution to the literature on contemporary armed conflicts. . . . Finnstrandouml;mandrsquo;s careful examination is essential for students, scholars, and practitioners who want to understand the political, economic, historical, cultural, and religious complexities involved in ay armed conflict.andrdquo; - Joanne Corbin, African Studies Review
Review
andldquo;This is a moving, politically engaged and penetrating study. It has . . . page-turning qualities. . . . If you are going to read just one book on northern Uganda, this is the one to go for.andrdquo; - Tim Allen, Africa
Synopsis
"Riveting. Powerful. Evocative. Anthropology at its best. Sverker Finnstrom is a gifted researcher and writer: in his hands the Acholi become a lens for understanding very twenty-first-century forms of violence and survival. This is a book about one of the more destructive and bitter wars on the African continent and its global connections. But it is also a book about hope, about facing and overcoming crises--of every culture being all cultures in the opus of experience, of mango trees surviving the tides of war and global ignorance. About sorrow and laughter and moments of coevalness in northern Uganda and beyond."--Carolyn Nordstrom, author of "Global Outlaws: Crime, Money, and Power in the Contemporary World"
Synopsis
Explores ways that people in Acholiland, Uganda struggle to control and comprehend their local moral universe during a civil war that has ravaged the region since 1986, and the role of rumors, cosmology, metaphor, and religion in their interpretation of t
Synopsis
An ethnographic examination of how northern Ugandans understand and attempt to control their moral universe and material circumstances in the midst of civil war.
About the Author
“Living with Bad Surroundings is a lucid, compelling, in-depth, and detailed exploration of the vexed position of youth in poverty-stricken Africa; a painstaking and authoritative account of one of the most refractory and long-running wars on that continent; and a demonstration of how imperative it is to complement historical and political-economic explanations of Africa’s conflicts with ethnographic perspectives that encompass local symbolic reality, local readings of history and tradition, local expectations and desires, and local understandings of power, morality, and reconciliation.”—Michael Jackson, author of In Sierra Leone“Riveting. Powerful. Evocative. Anthropology at its best. Sverker Finnström is a gifted researcher and writer: in his hands the Acholi become a lens for understanding very twenty-first-century forms of violence and survival. This is a book about one of the more destructive and bitter wars on the African continent and its global connections. But it is also a book about hope, about facing and overcoming crises—of every culture being all cultures in the opus of experience, of mango trees surviving the tides of war and global ignorance. About sorrow and laughter and moments of coevalness in northern Uganda and beyond.”—Carolyn Nordstrom, author of Global Outlaws: Crime, Money, and Power in the Contemporary World
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Orientations: War and culture in Uganda 1
1. Acholi worlds and the colonial encounter 29
2. Neocolonial legacies and evolving war 63
3. Rebel manifestos in context 99
4. Displacements 131
5. Wartime rumors and moral truths 167
6. Uprooting the pumpkins 197
Reorientations: Unfinished realities 233
Notes 245
Acronyms 253
References 255
Index 277