Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T22:50:59.089Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Post-conflict initiatives and the exclusion of conflict-affected young people in northern Uganda

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2021

Alina Dixon
Alina Dixon*
Affiliation:
Queens University, 68 University Ave, Mackintosh-Corry B401, KingstonON, K7L 3N9, Canada
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Young people are among the most severely impacted by conflict and as such many post-conflict initiatives are aimed at assisting them. Yet the impacts of these initiatives on young people's ability to successfully overcome the adversity they faced during conflict are not fully understood. This paper attempts to examine these impacts by conceptualising post-conflict initiatives as enmeshed within young people's social environments. It argues that post-conflict initiatives are intimately connected to broader processes of exclusion from social systems such as the family. While these systems had previously served to protect young people against adversity, conflict and post-conflict initiatives have disrupted their ability to continue this mission. In particular, the structure and function of the family system are examined to demonstrate the types of disruptions that have taken place that have ultimately negatively impacted the landscape in which young people develop.

Keywords

Youthpost-conflict initiativesyouth exclusionNorthern Uganda
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 59 , Issue 1 , March 2021 , pp. 21 - 39
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

This research is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

References

REFERENCES

Abbink, J. 2005. ‘Being young in Africa: the politics of despair and renewal’, in Abbink, J. & van Kessel, I., eds. Vanguard or Vandals: youth, politics and conflict in Africa. Danvers: Brill, 1–36.Google Scholar
Agbiboa, D.E. 2015. ‘Youth as tactical agents of peacebuilding and development in the Sahel’, Journal of Peacebuilding & Development 10, 3: 30–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ager, A., Pasha, E., Yu, G., Duke, T., Eriksson, C. & Cardozo, B.L.. 2012. ‘Stress, mental health, and burnout in national humanitarian aid workers in Gulu, Northern Uganda’, Journal of Traumatic Stress 25: 713–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Akello, G. 2010. Wartime Children's Suffering and Quests for Therapy in Northern Uganda. Leiden: African Studies Centre.Google Scholar
Akello, G., Richters, A. & Reis, R.. 2006. ‘Reintegration of former child soldiers in northern Uganda: coming to terms with children's agency and accountability’, Intervention 4, 3: 229–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Angucia, M. 2010. Broken Citizenship: formerly abducted children and their social reintegration in northern Uganda. Amsterdam: Rozenberg Publishers.Google Scholar
Annan, J. & Brier, M.. 2010. ‘The risk of return: intimate partner violence in Northern Uganda's armed conflict’, Social Science and Medicine 70: 152–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Annan, J., Brier, M. & Aryemo, F.. 2009. ‘From “rebel” to “returnee”: daily life and reintegration for young soldiers in Northern Uganda’, Journal of Adolescent Research 24, 6: 639–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Annan, J., Blattman, C., Mazurana, D. & Carlson, K.. 2011. ‘Civil war, reintegration, and gender in Northern Uganda’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 55, 6: 877–908.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Apio, E. 2007. ‘Uganda's forgotten children of war’, in Carpenter, R.C., ed. Born of War: protecting children of sexual violence survivors. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, 94–109.Google Scholar
Apio, E. 2008. Bearing the Burden of Blame: the children born of the Lord's Resistance Army, Northern Uganda, London: Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers.Google Scholar
Baines, E.K. 2015. ‘“Today I want to speak out the truth”: victim agency, responsibility, and transitional justice’, International Political Sociology 9: 316–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bau, V. 2014. ‘Building peace through social change communication: participatory video in conflict-affected communities’, Community Development Journal 50, 1: 121–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berents, H. 2015. ‘Children, violence, and social exclusion: negotiation of everyday insecurity in a Colombian barrio’, Critical Studies on Security 3, 1: 90–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bevan, J. 2007. ‘The myth of madness: cold rationality and ‘resource’ plunder by the Lord's Resistance Army’, Civil Wars 9, 4: 343–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borer, T.A., Darby, J. & McEvoy-Levy, S.. 2006. Peacebuilding After Peace Accords: the challenges of violence, truth, and youth. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Branch, A. 2011. Displacing Human Rights: war and intervention in northern Uganda. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheney, K.E. 2012. ‘Seen but not heard: African orphanhood in the age of HIV/AIDS’, in Ensor, M.O., ed. African Childhoods: education, development, peacebuilding, and the youngest continent. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 95–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coe, C. 2012. ‘Representing youth: school dramas and youth authority in Ghana’, in Ensor, M.O., ed. African Childhoods: education, development, peacebuilding, and the youngest continent. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 127–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dei, G.J.S., Asgharzadeh, A., Bahador, S.E. & Shahjahan, R.A.. 2006. Schooling and Difference in Africa: democratic challenges in a contemporary context. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
DENIVA. 2006. Civil Society in Uganda: at the cross roads? CIVICUS Civil Society Index Project.Google Scholar
Denov, M. & Buccitelli, A.. 2013. ‘Navigating crisis and chronicity in the everyday: former child soldiers in urban Sierra Leone’, Stability: International Journal of Security and Development 2, 2: 1–18.Google Scholar
Denov, M. & Lakor, A.A.. 2017. ‘When war is better than peace: the post-conflict realities of children born in wartime rape in northern Uganda’, Child Abuse & Neglect 65: 255–65.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dolan, C. 2009. Social Torture: the case of northern Uganda 1986–2006. New York, NY: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Dunn, K.C. 2010. ‘The Lord's Resistance Army and African International Relations’, African Security 3: 46–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ensor, M.O. & Reinke, A.J.. 2014. ‘African children's right to participate in their own protection: perspectives from South Sudan’, International Journal of Children's Rights 22: 68–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hepburn, A. 2006. ‘Introduction to Part One: histories and theories of human rights’ in Boothby, N., Strong, A. & Wessells, M., eds. Philosophy of Human Rights. St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 63–88.Google Scholar
Honwana, A. 2006. ‘Child soldiers: community healing and rituals in Mozambique and Angola’, in Daiute, C., Beykont, Z.F., Higson-Smith, C. & Nucci, L., eds. International Perspectives on Youth Conflict and Development. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 225–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopwood, J. 2013. Land Conflict Monitoring and Mapping Tool for the Acholi Sub-region. Kampala: United Nations Peacebuilding Programme, Human Rights Focus.Google Scholar
Hopwood, J. 2015. ‘Women's land claims in the Acholi region of Northern Uganda: what can be learned from what is contested’, International Journal on Minority and Group Rights 22: 387–409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopwood, J. 2017. Land Conflict and Security in Acholi, Northern Uganda. Justice and Security and Research Programme Policy Brief 7.Google Scholar
Human Rights Watch. 2005. Uprooted and Forgotten: impunity and human rights abuses in Northern Uganda. https://www.hrw.org/report/2005/09/20/uprooted-and-forgotten/impunity-and-human-rights-abuses-northern-uganda.Google Scholar
Kasaija, P.A. 2008. ‘The international criminal court & the Lord's Resistance Army insurgency in northern Uganda’, in Nhema, A.G. & Zeleza, P.T., eds. The Resolution of African Conflicts: the management of conflict resolution & post-conflict reconstruction. Addis Ababa: OSSREA, 52–71.Google Scholar
Kisekka-Ntale, F. 2007. ‘Roots of the conflict in Northern Uganda’, Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies 32, 4: 421–52.Google Scholar
Kliewer, W., Cunningham, J. N., Diehl, R., Parrish, K.A., Walker, J.M., Atiyeh, C., Neace, B., Duncan, L., Taylor, R. & Mejia, R.. 2004. ‘Violence exposure and adjustment in inner-city youth: child and caregiver emotion regulation skills, caregiver-child relationship quality, and neighbourhood cohesion as protective factors’, Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology 33, 3: 477–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kostelny, K. 2006. ‘A culture-based integrative approach: helping war-affected children’, in Boothby, N., Strong, A. & Wessells, M., eds. A World Turned Upside Down: social ecological approaches to children in war zones. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, 19–37.Google Scholar
Ladisch, V. 2015. From Rejection to Redress: overcoming legacies of conflict-related sexual violence in northern Uganda. International Centre for Transitional Justice.Google Scholar
Levey, E.J., Oppenheim, C.E., Lange, B.C.L., Plasky, N.S., Harris, B.L., Lekpeh, G., Kekulah, I., Henderson, D.C. & Borba, P.C.. 2016. ‘A qualitative analysis of factors impacting resilience among youth in post-conflict Liberia’, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health 10, 26. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13034-016-0114-7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Levey, E.J., Laird, L.D., Becker, A.E., Harris, B.L., Lekpeh, G.G., Oppenheim, C.E., Henderson, D.C. & Borba, C.P.C.. 2018. ‘Narratives of agency and capability from two adolescent girls in post-conflict Liberia’, Culture, Medicine, & Psychiatry 42, 4: 947–79.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lynch, M. & Cicchetti, D.. 2002. ‘Links between community violence and the family system: evidence from children's feelings of relatedness and perceptions of parent behavior’, Family Process 41, 3: 519–32.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Martuscelli, P.N. & Villa, R.D.. 2018. ‘Child soldiers as peace-builders in Colombian peace talks between the government and the FARC-EP’, Conflict, Security & Development 18, 5: 387–408.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McIntyre, A., ed. 2005. Invisible Stakeholders: children and war in Africa. Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies.Google Scholar
Mergelsberg, B. 2012. ‘The displaced family: moral imaginations and social control in Pabbo, northern Uganda’, Journal of Eastern African Studies 6, 1: 64–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ministry of Finance, Planning, and Economic Development. 2003. Post-conflict Reconstruction: the case of Northern Uganda (Discussion Paper 7). Kampala, Uganda.Google Scholar
Narayan, U. 1997. ‘Cross-cultural connections, border crossings and “death by culture”’, in Dislocating Cultures: identities, traditions, and Third World feminisms. New York, NY: Routledge, 13–32.Google Scholar
Omach, P. 2016. ‘Civil society organizations and local-level peacebuilding in Northern Uganda’, Journal of Asian and African Studies 5, 1: 77–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Onono, O.J. 2013. ‘The future of children born in LRA captivity uncertain, say their mothers’, Acholi Times, 24 June. http://acholitimes.com/2013/06/24/939/.Google Scholar
Patel, S.H., Muyinda, H., Sewankambo, N.K., Oyat, G., Atim, S. & Spittal, P.M.. 2012. ‘In the face of war: examining sexual vulnerabilities of Acholi adolescent girls living in displacement camps in conflict-affected Northern Uganda’, BMC International Health and Human Rights 12, 1: 38.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ressler, E.M., Boothby, N. & Steinbock, D.J.. 1998. Unaccompanied Children: care and protection in wars, natural disasters, and refugee movements. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rugadya, M.A., Nsamba-Hayiiya, E. & Kamusiime, H.. 2008. Analysis of Post Conflict Land Policy and Land Administration: a survey of IDP return and resettlement issues and lesson: Acholi and Lango regions. Kampala: World Bank UPI.Google Scholar
Shanahan, F. & Veale, A.. 2016. ‘How mothers mediate the social integration of their children conceived of forced marriage within the Lord's Resistance Army’, Child Abuse & Neglect 51: 72–86.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Smith, A.B. 2007. ‘Children's rights and early childhood education’, Australian Journal of Early Childhood 32, 3: 1–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stewart, B. 2017. 'I feel out of place': children born into the Lord's Resistance Army and the politics of belonging. PhD thesis, University of British Colombia, Vancouver.Google Scholar
Ungar, M. 2010. ‘What is resilience across cultures and contexts? Advances to the theory of positive development among individuals and families under stress’, Journal of Family Psychotherapy 21, 1: 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ungar, M. 2011. ‘The social ecology of resilience: addressing contextual and cultural ambiguity of nascent construct’, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 81, 1: 1–17.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ungar, M., ed. 2012. ‘Social ecologies and their contribution to resilience’, in The Social Ecology of Resilience: a handbook of theory and practice. New York, NY: Springer, 13–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Acker, B. 2004. Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army: the new order no one ordered. African Affairs 103, 412: 335–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Kessel, I. & Abbink, J.. 2005. Vanguard or Vandal: youth, politics and conflict in Africa. Boston: Brill.Google Scholar
Vindevogel, S., Coppens, K., Derluyn, I., De Schryver, M., Loots, G. & Broekaert, E.. 2011. ‘Forced conscription of children during armed conflict: experiences of former child soldiers in northern Uganda’, Child Abuse & Neglect 35: 551–62.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Woldetsadik, M.A. 2017. Lessons from Northern Uganda: post-conflict integration of ‘children born of war’’, RAND Corporation, https://www.rand.org/blog/2017/04/lessons-from-northern-uganda-post-conflict-integration.html.Google Scholar
Wyman, P.A., Cowen, E.L., Work, W.C., Raoof, A., Gribble, P.A., Parker, G.R. & Wannon, M.. 1992. ‘Interviews with children who experienced major life stress: family and child attributes that predict resilient outcomes’, Journal of the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry 31, 5: 904–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

Interviews

Participant 1, Cultural leader, Gulu, Uganda, 26.9.2016.Google Scholar
Participant 3, Rights-based NGO staff member, Gulu, Uganda, 3.10.2016.Google Scholar
Participant 4, Sports-based NGO staff member, Gulu, Uganda, 7.10.2016.Google Scholar
Participant 10, Reconciliation focused CBO staff member, Gulu, Uganda, 15.10.2016.Google Scholar
Participant 11, Vocational training institute staff member, Gulu, Uganda, 17.10.2016.Google Scholar
Participant 12, Cultural institution staff member, Gulu, Uganda, 18.10.2016.Google Scholar
Participant 17, Founder of vocational training CBO, Gulu, Uganda, 24.10.2016.Google Scholar
Participant 18, Cultural leader, Gulu, Uganda, 27.10.2016.Google Scholar
Participant 20, Childcare institution staff member, Gulu, Uganda, 2.11.2016.Google Scholar
Participant 27, Teacher training CBO staff member, Gulu, Uganda, 16.11.2016.Google Scholar
Participant 30, Arts-based NGO staff member, Gulu, Uganda, 21.11.2016.Google Scholar