TY - JOUR
T1 - AT THE BOUNDARIES OF LIFE AND DEATH
T2 - Notes on Eritrea and Northern Uganda
AU - Hepner, Tricia Redeker
N1 - Funding Information:
2. In addition to the vast and growing body of scholarship on transitional justice in Uganda, organizations like the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), Refugee Law Project, and the Justice and Reconciliation Project engage in extensive research and policy work in the country. 3. Some limited excavations and reburials have occurred, funded by bodies like the Northern Ugandan Transitional Initiative (NUTI) and the Japan International Cooperation Association (JICA). One scientific forensic investigation of a mass grave occurred in Lukodi shortly after the massacre incident and remains controversial for its lack of transparency (Akullo Otwili and Frerks 2011; Kim 2018).
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © The Trustees of Indiana University.
PY - 2020/3
Y1 - 2020/3
N2 - Both Eritrea and northern Uganda have been sites of protracted civil war, mass displacement, entrenched militarism, and abject violence. These provide initial bases for comparison between two otherwise disparate ethnographic case studies. However, focusing on people’s symbolic and material preoccupations with the boundary between life and death, and the political and legal potency of dead bodies, illuminates profoundly human experiences shared among Eritreans and northern Ugandans. It also highlights connections between these two African conflict zones and the global, historical, and existential conditions humanity faces today. In particular, forms of resistance and solidarity among Eritrean refugees and Acholi war survivors suggest possibilities for a persistent politics of life despite scholarly preoccupations with the biopolitical and necropolitical power of states and state-sanctioned regimes to dictate the terms of life and death.
AB - Both Eritrea and northern Uganda have been sites of protracted civil war, mass displacement, entrenched militarism, and abject violence. These provide initial bases for comparison between two otherwise disparate ethnographic case studies. However, focusing on people’s symbolic and material preoccupations with the boundary between life and death, and the political and legal potency of dead bodies, illuminates profoundly human experiences shared among Eritreans and northern Ugandans. It also highlights connections between these two African conflict zones and the global, historical, and existential conditions humanity faces today. In particular, forms of resistance and solidarity among Eritrean refugees and Acholi war survivors suggest possibilities for a persistent politics of life despite scholarly preoccupations with the biopolitical and necropolitical power of states and state-sanctioned regimes to dictate the terms of life and death.
KW - biopolitics
KW - Eritrea
KW - necropolitics
KW - refugee
KW - Uganda
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U2 - 10.2979/africonfpeacrevi.10.1.06
DO - 10.2979/africonfpeacrevi.10.1.06
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85122976390
SN - 2156-695X
VL - 10
SP - 127
EP - 142
JO - African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review
JF - African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review
IS - 1
ER -