‘Bones in the wrong soil’: reburial, belonging, and disinterred cosmologies in post-conflict northern Uganda

Abstract

In the aftermath of the war in northern Uganda between the Lord's Resistance Army and the Ugandan government, most of the internally displaced have returned to pre-displacement areas of residence. As efforts to remake homes and reorder lives take centre stage, reburials from sites of displacement to former homesteads have become a widespread practice. Based on an ethnographic study in the formerly largest internal displacement camp in Acholiland, northern Uganda, we argue that the importance of reburial is twofold: first, it stems from a cosmological idiom in which, while in constant flux, belonging is spiritually embedded and territorially circumscribed; and second, the practice of reburial becomes implicated in post-conflict agendas of development and ‘reconstruction’ with pronounced material and cosmological consequences. Yet, contemporary debates in refugee studies have failed to grasp the importance of cosmological concerns and the ways these are bound up with questions of territoriality in post-displacement societies. It is therefore theoretically important to shift the contours of debate around post-conflict return and reconstruction from a focus on the critique of fluidity of social identities – or alternately emphasizing livelihoods and material ‘reconstruction’ – to an interrogation of the myriad ways in which place is made meaningful through ritual action invoking the material and the non-material alike, while at the same time being attentive to how the politics and materiality of post-conflict developmentalism continually shape, intersect with, and disrupt cosmological practice.

Au lendemain de la guerre dans le nord de l'Ouganda entre l'Armée de résistance du Seigneur et le gouvernement ougandais, la plupart des déplacées internes sont retournés dans les zones de résidence d'avant-déplacement. Alors que les efforts pour recréer des foyers et réorganiser les vies occupent une place centrale, les réinhumations depuis les sites de déplacement vers les anciennes propriétés sont devenues une pratique très répandue. Nous fondant sur une étude ethnographique dans l'ancien plus grand camp de déplacés internes de l'Acholiland, au nord de l'Ouganda, nous soutenons que l'importance de la réinhumation est double: d'abord, elle découle d'un idiome cosmologique au sein duquel l'appartenance, bien qu'en plein mouvement, est intégré spirituellement et territorialement circonscrite; et deuxièmement, la pratique de la réinhumation devient mêlée aux programmes post-conflit de développement et de «reconstruction» avec des conséquences matérielles et cosmologiques prononcées. Toutefois, les débats contemporains au sein des études sur les réfugiés n'ont pas saisi l'importance des préoccupations cosmologiques et les façons dont celles-ci sont liées à des questions de territorialité dans les sociétés d'après-déplacement. Il est donc théoriquement important de déplacer le cœur du débat, concernant retour d'après conflit et reconstruction, d'une concentration sur la critique de la fluidité des identités sociales (ou alternativement en mettant l'accent sur les moyens de subsistance et la «reconstruction» matérielle) vers un examen des multiples manières avec lesquelles un lieu est rendu significatif à travers une action rituelle invoquant si bien le matériel que le non-matériel, tout en étant conjointement attentif à la façon dont la politique et la matérialité du développementalisme d'après conflit façonnent continuellement, recoupent et perturbent la pratique cosmologique.

Keywords:

• forced displacement
• reburial
• cosmology
• belonging
• durable solutions
• post-conflict politics
• northern Uganda

Mots-clefs:

• déplacement forcé
• réinhumation
• cosmologie
• appartenance
• solutions durables
• politique d'après-conflit
• Ouganda du Nord

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Professor Susan Reynolds Whyte for her kind and wise input while this research was being conducted. Our heartfelt thanks to Victor Oloya for his excellent research and translation assistance, and to Beatrice Akello for her warm hospitality and guidance in Pabbo.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This research was undertaken with support of an Erasmus Mundus scholarship granted by the Consortium of the European Master of Migration and Intercultural Relations, University of Oldenburg.

Notes

1. The ethnographic research for this article was conducted in Pabbo (site of former Pabbo IDP camp), Acholiland, by Ina Jahn in January and February 2013, with infield support by Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon in January 2013. Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon also conducted doctoral fieldwork in northern Uganda between 2006 and 2009 during the initial period of the return movements, material which provides a backdrop to this article.

2. All names used are pseudonyms to protect the privacy of our interlocutors.

3. Conversing with Pabbo's Rwot Moo in February 2013, he estimated that approximately 500 reburials from former Pabbo IDP camp site to returnee villages have taken place since the camp's official closure in 2010.

4. They were Leviticus 20:27: “A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them”, and Leviticus 19:31: “Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God.”

5. Copy in possession of authors and cited with permission.

6. Pabbo's Rwot Moo as quoted in JICA Gulu Office Newsletter May 2010 (copy in authors’ possession).