The "Untold" Stories of Outsiders and Their Significance for the Analysis of (Post-) Conflict Figurations. Interviews with Victims of Collective Violence in Northern Uganda (West Nile)

Authors

  • Artur Bogner University of Bayreuth
  • Gabriele Rosenthal Georg-August-Universität Göttingen

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-15.3.2138

Keywords:

narrative interviews, biographical research, Uganda, West Nile, violence, peacebuilding, conflict transformation, reconciliation, collective memory

Abstract

We have conducted interviews with women and men who are victims of collective violence in the region of West Nile in northern Uganda, by the hands either of rebels or of members of various government armies. We show the position and relevancy of their perspectives in public discourses in and about this region. Using biographical-narrative interviews and group discussions, we highlight how their voices are subdued in public discourse in which the ex-rebels present themselves as the victims of history. The interviews illustrate that the narrative interview method is of help also in this non-European research setting as it supports the interviewees to verbalize what they have suffered. The analysis of how collective violence is thematized in the interviews as well as in public discourses brings about important insights into the perspectivity and the biases of these discourses—and how they were generated. For this reason (amongst others), it is important, when analyzing the region's recent history as well as (post-) conflict figurations in general to accommodate the biographical experiences of victims of collective violence.

URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs140349

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Author Biographies

Artur Bogner, University of Bayreuth

Artur BOGNER (PhD Social Sciences) is a researcher at the University of Bayreuth, Department of Development Sociology. He has authored a number of publications on sociological theory, development sociology, and conflict and peace studies in Ghana and Africa. The focus of his current empirical research is on de-escalation processes, post-conflict processes and local armed conflicts in northern Uganda and northern Ghana.

Gabriele Rosenthal, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen

Gabriele ROSENTHAL is a sociologist and professor for qualitative methodology at the Center of Methods in Social Sciences at the Georg-August University Göttingen. Her major research focus is on the intergenerational impact of the collective and familial history on biographical structures and actional patterns of individuals and family systems. Her current research deals with ethnicity and ethnopolitical conflicts and the social construction of borders.

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Published

2014-08-23

How to Cite

Bogner, A., & Rosenthal, G. (2014). The "Untold" Stories of Outsiders and Their Significance for the Analysis of (Post-) Conflict Figurations. Interviews with Victims of Collective Violence in Northern Uganda (West Nile). Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 15(3). https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-15.3.2138

Issue

Section

Single Contributions