A Lost Generation? Kony, Conflict, and the Cultural Impacts in Northern Uganda by David W. Westfall M.A., Kansas State University, 2009 An Abstract of a Dissertation Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work College of Arts and Sciences Kansas State University Manhattan, Kansas 2017 Abstract For over two decades the people of northern Uganda endured horrific atrocities during Africa’s forgotten war in the form of attacks and child abductions by the Lord’s Resistance Army, animal rustling by neighboring ethnic groups, and internal displacement of an unimaginable 90 percent of the northern parts of the country. With the majority of internally displaced persons spending over a decade in IDP camps, an entire generation of Acholi was socialized and acculturated in a non-traditional environment. A decade after the last LRA attack, I ask, what are the cultural impacts of the conflict and how has the culture recovered from the trauma. Using ethnographic analysis, this dissertation is rooted in over 150 interviews. While it has been presented to the world at large that Joseph Kony’s LRA is the one of the biggest problems facing the region, I found it is not the case. Interviewees discussed serious inadequacies in education, land conflict, culture loss, climate change, drought, famine, a perceived generational divide, and a strong distrust of the Ugandan government. Additionally this research examines the case of Uganda through the lens of, and attempts to build upon, Jeffrey Alexander’s cultural trauma process. I argue the increasing reach and instantaneous nature of social media can interact with, alter, and prolong the trauma process. The externalization of defining a problem and solutions for that problem while the trauma process is occurring, or shortly after the trauma has subsided, can lead to retraumatization. A Lost Generation? Kony, Conflict, and the Cultural Impacts in Northern Uganda by David W. Westfall M.A., Kansas State University, 2009 A Dissertation Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work College of Arts and Sciences Kansas State University Manhattan, Kansas 2017 Approved by: Major Professor Dr. Gerad Middendorf Copyright David W. Westfall 2017 Abstract For over two decades the people of northern Uganda endured horrific atrocities during Africa’s forgotten war in the form of attacks and child abductions by the Lord’s Resistance Army, animal rustling by neighboring ethnic groups, and internal displacement of an unimaginable 90 percent of the northern parts of the country. With the majority of internally displaced persons spending over a decade in IDP camps, an entire generation of Acholi was socialized and acculturated in a non-traditional environment. A decade after the last LRA attack, I ask, what are the cultural impacts of the conflict and how has the culture recovered from the trauma. Using ethnographic analysis, this dissertation is rooted in over 150 interviews. While it has been presented to the world at large that Joseph Kony’s LRA is the one of the biggest problems facing the region, I found it is not the case. Interviewees discussed serious inadequacies in education, land conflict, culture loss, climate change, drought, famine, a perceived generational divide, and a strong distrust of the Ugandan government. Additionally this research examines the case of Uganda through the lens of, and attempts to build upon, Jeffrey Alexander’s cultural trauma process. I argue the increasing reach and instantaneous nature of social media can interact with, alter, and prolong the trauma process. The externalization of defining a problem and solutions for that problem while the trauma process is occurring, or shortly after the trauma has subsided, can lead to retraumatization. Table of Contents List of Figures..............................................................................................................................viii List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. ix Acknowledgements......................................................................................................................... x Dedication...................................................................................................................................... xi Chapter 1 - Introduction.................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 2 - Literature and Historical Context............................................................................... 15 Social Movement Literature ................................................................................................. 19 Resource Mobilization...................................................................................................... 23 Political Process................................................................................................................ 25 Framing............................................................................................................................. 27 Critical Constructionism ................................................................................................... 31 Cultural Trauma................................................................................................................ 32 Chapter 3 - Methodology.............................................................................................................. 35 Locating the Researcher............................................................................................................ 40 Chapter 4 - “New Wine in an Old Bottle” .................................................................................... 45 Education .......................................................................................................................... 51 Land Conflict ............................................................................................................................ 61 “Land is Life in Acholiland”............................................................................................. 61 Chapter 5 – “Who am I? What do I do now?”............................................................................. 72 Culture Loss...................................................................................................................... 72 “The rains don’t come”..................................................................................................... 89 Generational Divide.......................................................................................................... 91 Chapter 6 – “How will this help us?” ........................................................................................... 98 Cultural Trauma...................................................................................................................... 106 Cultural Crisis Event....................................................................................................... 108 Claims Making................................................................................................................ 109 Carrier Groups ................................................................................................................ 111 Audience and Situation................................................................................................... 112 vi Cultural Classification: The Creation of Trauma as a New Master Narrative................ 112 Institutional Arenas......................................................................................................... 114 Stratificational Hierarchies ............................................................................................. 115 Identity Revision, Memory, and Routinization............................................................... 116 How will this help? ......................................................................................................... 117 Chapter 7 – “A Lost Generation”................................................................................................ 121 References................................................................................................................................... 132 Appendix..................................................................................................................................... 139 Interview Schedule.......................................................................................................... 139 vii List of Figures Figure 6.1: Social Process of Cultural Trauma........................................................................... 107 viii List of Tables Table 4.1 Mean and median ages in primary school by class ................................................. 57 Table 4.2 Estimated Net Enrollment Rate for Children aged 6-12 (%) ................................ 57 Table 4.3: Educational Status of persons aged 15 years and above by selected background characteristics (%) .............................................................................................................. 58 Table 4.4: Internally Displaced People in Uganda by Year.................................................... 62 Table 4.5: Estimated Number of People