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179 9 Youth in transition The Arts and Cultural Resonance in Postconflict Northern Uganda lindsay McClain opiyo and tricia redeker Hepner three decades ago, art therapist and scholar Harriet Wadeson (1980, 3) stated, “life, Meaning, Creativity, art. in the largest sense, they are all one.” in a different yet contemporaneous vein, sociocultural anthropologists began ethnographically documenting and theorizing, through diverse cross-cultural case studies, that “there is nothing innate in human nature that constitutes a barrier to perpetual peace, except willful ignorance” (Montagu 1994, xii; see also Howell and Willis 1989; sponsel and gregor 1994). in yet a third and related development, anthropologists interested in human rights and social justice linked elements of an emergent anthropology of peace with longstanding disciplinary interests in violence, conflict and aggression to develop a rich and critical body of scholarship analyzing the flexible appropriation of the “universal” notions of human rights and justice among societies coping with the impact of domination , poverty, war, and political conflict (see Preis 1996; Merry 2006a; Wilson 1997). This chapter weaves together elements of these intellectual strands to critically examine how the creative arts have played a central role in the formulation and dissemination of ideas and practices associated with peace, reconciliation, and human rights among the acholi—notably the youth—in contemporary postconflict northern uganda. for over two decades, the people of northern uganda have suffered from severe persecution and marginalization both at the hands of the government of uganda and through the violence of rebel insurgencies: namely, the lord’s resistance army, or lra (see opongo, this volume; ochen, this volume). since independence in 1962, nearly every corner of the country has undergone some period of violence resulting from rebellion, state intimidation, or regional and tribal division—an unfortunate remnant 180 | Social and Cultural Dimensions of Conflict and Peacebuilding of britain’s “divide-and-rule” colonial tactics. However, the systematic discrimination against northerners has been particularly acute since the mid-1980s. When President Yoweri kaguta Museveni came to power in 1986 through protracted guerrilla warfare, a series of chain reactions rippled throughout the north. several groups, fearing reprisal from the new regime, took up arms against the state, including the lra. in a tragic twist of events, both the rebels and the government began violently targeting civilians, leaving much truth to the african proverb that when two elephants fight, it is the grass that gets trampled. The consequences of this instability in northern uganda are staggering. Millions were displaced by the violence, and an estimated 60,000 people were abducted by rebels (anwar 2007; see also finnström 2008). as a result, northern uganda is thought to have some of the highest levels of posttraumatic stress disorder (Ptsd) and depression recorded anywhere, with an estimated 54 percent of the population suffering from Ptsd (roberts et al. 2008, 4). numerous ethnic groups suffered from this violence, but the acholi were located at the heart of the conflict in northern uganda and were therefore especially affected. for example, an estimated 90 percent of acholi were relocated to the more than fifty internally displaced persons (idP) camps in acholiland. extensive research has been done to document indigenous concepts of justice and reconciliation given the severe scope and magnitude of the conflict (see baines 2005). relatedly, since the conflict formally ended in 2006, northern uganda has witnessed the exponential growth of both indigenous and foreign nongovernmental organizations (ngos) and special programs intended to foster peace, social and individual healing, and reconciliation. Many of these explicitly target young people and utilize the arts as media of expression. in her research on creative expression and the refugee experience, Margaret Mills identified a general “lack of attention . . . to the areas of cultural expression and artistic experience,” and found that many aid workers and service providers framed refugees as passive victims with their culture in disarray, instead of supporting channels for creative expression (Mills 1990). The plethora of cultural and arts-based ngo interventions in northern uganda today suggests a shift in the last two decades, in which aid programming increasingly values creative and cultural expression. With respect to scholarship, however, something of the reverse has happened: little or no academic attention has been paid to the meaning and impact of creative and cultural expression in the northern ugandan context. our chapter aims to begin breaking this silence. in seeking to understand how the performing and plastic arts—including dance, drama, poetry, music, painting, drawing, and sculpture—may play a role in addressing individual and...

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