Conflict Transformation and Social Change in Uganda : Remembering after Violence PDF

Although the traditional mediation of the Teso insurgency in Uganda ended the violence in a rather exceptional manner, the relationship between the parties to the conflict has not been transformed and peace remains shallow.

Remembering after Violence argues that the absence of social change can be understood through analyzing processes of identity formation and remembering.

Inverting the argument of post-positivist approaches to conflict studies, which situate the emergence of violent conflict in discourse, the book develops a hermeneutics framework for analyzing the discursive production of peace.

It investigates the impact of memory, identity, closure and power on conflict transformation in Teso and examines what narratives are selected to explain the beginning of the insurgency, how the only war memorial is interpreted by local residents and if the newly invented cultural leader has the potential to improve the situation of the marginalised region.

The book concludes with a call for a comprehensive effort of dealing with the past in war-torn societies.