Childhood, Youth Identity, and Violence in Formerly Displaced Communities in Uganda

183 Pages·2018·1.679 MB·English

by  Victoria Flavia Namuggala

CRITICAL CULTURAL STUDIES OF CHILDHOOD
CHILDHOOD, YOUTH
IDENTITY, AND VIOLENCE
IN FORMERLY DISPLACED
COMMUNITIES IN UGANDA
VICTORIA FLAVIA NAMUGGALA
Critical Cultural Studies of Childhood
Series Editors
Marianne Bloch
Westport, WI, USA
Elizabeth Blue Swadener
School of Social Transformation
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ, USA
This series focuses on reframings of theory, research, policy, and
pedagogies in childhood. A critical cultural study of childhood is one
that offers a ‘prism’ of possibilities for writing about power and its rela-
tionship to the cultural constructions of childhood, family, and education
in broad societal, local, and global contexts. Books in the series open up
new spaces for dialogue and reconceptualization based on critical theo-
retical and methodological framings, including critical pedagogy; advo-
cacy and social justice perspectives; cultural, historical, and comparative
studies of childhood; and post-structural, postcolonial, and/or feminist
studies of childhood, family, and education. The intent of the series is
to examine the relations between power, language, and what is taken as
normal/abnormal, good, and natural, to understand the construction
of the ‘other,’ difference and inclusions/exclusions that are embedded
in current notions of childhood, family, educational reforms, policies,
and the practices of schooling. Critical Cultural Studies of Childhood
will open up dialogue about new possibilities for action and research.
Single-authored as well as edited volumes focusing on critical studies of
childhood from a variety of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives are
included in the series. A particular focus is in a reimagining and criti-
cal reflection on policy and practice in early childhood, primary, and
elementary education. The series intends to open up new spaces for
reconceptualizing theories and traditions of research, policies, cultural rea-
sonings, and practices at all of these levels, in the United States, as well as
comparatively.
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14933
Victoria Flavia Namuggala
Childhood, Youth
Identity, and Violence
in Formerly Displaced
Communities in
Uganda
Victoria Flavia Namuggala
Makerere University
Kampala, Uganda
Critical Cultural Studies of Childhood
ISBN 978-3-319-96627-4 ISBN 978-3-319-96628-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96628-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018949830
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018
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I dedicate this volume to my children Gregory, Gabriel and Gareth
Katende.
S e ’ P
erieS ditorS reface
We are delighted that this volume is a part of our series, Critical Cultural
Studies of Childhood, as it powerfully decenters prevailing Western
assumptions about childhood and children’s life experiences and makes a
powerful contribution to childhood studies and related interdisciplinary
fields. Drawing on her research with youth directly affected (displaced)
by the protracted civil war in Northern Uganda, Victoria Namuggala
shares a rich and nuanced analysis of the lives and perspectives of young
people, many of whom were captured and forced into child soldier roles.
Her interviews with these young people shed light on ways in which they
demonstrate both vulnerability and agency. Childhood, Youth Identity,
and Violence in Formerly Displaced Communities in Uganda uses African
feminist and indigenous epistemologies to decolonize constructions and
understandings of childhood and children.
This book is organized as an interrelated set of seven essays that ana-
lyze historical Western constructions of childhood, Global South and
Ugandan traditions and contemporary contexts, and the “complex inter-
sectional nature of youthhood and its cultural relevance to formerly
displaced communities and how this manifests in access to and use of
humanitarian assistance”. The book also examines the often contradic-
tory roles of NGOs working with such groups and the ways in which
young mothers negotiate their roles as motherhood defines them as
more adult.
As series co-editors and longtime colleagues doing work in sub-Saha-
ran Africa for over three decades, we (as series editors) appreciated the
vii
viii SErIES EDITOrS’ PrEFACE
depth of cultural and scholarly insights that underscore deep tensions
that occur when children return, or are repatriated, at times as young
parents, to their rural communities are not necessarily welcomed home.
Victoria Namuggala, a scholar in Women and Gender Studies and
Childhood Studies at Makerere University, negotiates her roles as an
“insider outsider”. Her use of youth voice and gender studies expertise is
powerful, including her framing of childhood as a human right, explor-
ing ways in which armed violence denies such rights, and limitations to
using numeric age in categorizing structural inequalities affecting the
girl child and female youth. From trauma to intersectional identities and
contested childhood, the essays in this book will inform, inspire, and
raise even more questions and contestations of ways in which childhood
is typically defined and experienced.
This volume brings to our attention issues faced by many in war-torn
parts of the world that are often ignored in Western-centric studies of
gender and childhoods. It is urgent that we bring this work into the
center of scholarship and recognize that ignorance of such events makes
us complicit with persistent violence in children’s lives. We urge more
scholars to share work that educates us on the intersectional worlds of
children in dangerous spaces, experiencing complicated childhoods.
Westport, USA Marianne Bloch
Tempe, USA Elizabeth Blue Swadener
P
reface
The essays in this volume provide a critical assessment of mainstream
Western childhood notions and their impact on the developing world.
Using African feminist and indigenous epistemological frameworks, this
volume seeks to decolonize the understanding of childhood and chil-
dren. This volume consists of seven essays, which are thematically con-
nected, yet can as well stand as independent chapters. The essays discuss
a number of issues including the historical construction of childhood,
and the use of numeric age in categorizing population and structural ine-
qualities affecting the girl child and the female youth. The essays addi-
tionally explore a number of issues regarding Westernization, (Ugandan)
traditions, individual and collective identities and sense of belonging.
Specifically, the volume presents Global South contestations of main-
stream Western constructions exploring alternative notions to childhood.
The essays critique and problematize some prevalent notions related to
culture, identity, and vulnerability and belonging especially in situations
of armed violence. The volume also deliberates childhood as a human
right exploring how armed violence hinders realization of such rights
focusing on humanitarian assistance programs implemented in northern
Uganda. Besides childhood, this book also explores the complex inter-
sectional nature of youthhood and its cultural relevance to formerly
displaced communities and how this manifests in access to and use of
humanitarian assistance. In conclusion, the volume acknowledges the
agency and resilience of young people despite the numerous challenges
ix
x PrEFACE
and traumas they encounter especially during situations of forced dis-
placement.
This volume also brings together both Western and Global South
approaches to childhood. In other words, it is an intersection of these
two, and their complex dynamics. The book is interdisciplinary, draw-
ing on childhood studies, peace and conflict studies, cultural studies, and
feminist studies. It offers descriptive material from a place and people not
often included in discussions of the development and lives of children
and youth but reflective of other places and conditions outside Uganda
and Africa. The volume thus positions African/Ugandan childhoods
within mainstream childhood standards.
Kampala, Uganda Victoria Flavia Namuggala