C1 Book
Christianity, Politics and the Afterlives of War in Uganda : There is Confusion (2022)


Alava, H. (2022). Christianity, Politics and the Afterlives of War in Uganda : There is Confusion. Bloomsbury Academic. Religious Studies. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350175815


JYU authors or editors


Publication details

All authors or editors: Alava, Henni

ISBN: 978-1-350-17582-2

eISBN: 978-1-3501-7581-5

Journal or series: Religious Studies

Publication year: 2022

Publication date: 21/02/2022

Number of pages in the book: 288

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Publication country: United Kingdom

Publication language: English

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350175815

Publication open access: Openly available

Publication channel open access: Delayed open access channel

Publication is parallel published (JYX): https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/92614

Additional information: Retrospective open access. This book will be published in Spring 2022 and the OA version will become available 18 months later.


Abstract

Christianity, Politics and the Afterlives of War in Ugandasheds critical light on the complex and unstable relationship between Christianity and politics, and peace and war. Drawing on long-running ethnographic fieldwork in Uganda's largest religious communities, it maps the tensions and ironies found in the Catholic and Anglican Churches in the wake of war between the Lord's Resistance Army and the Government of Uganda. It shows how churches' responses to the war were enabled by their embeddedness in local communities. Yet churches' embeddedness in structures of historical violence made their attempts to nurture peace liable to compound conflict.

At the heart of the book is the Acholi concept of anyobanyoba, 'confusion', which depicts an experienced sense of both ambivalence and uncertainty, a state of mixed-up affairs within community and an essential aspect of politics in a country characterized by the threat of state violence. Foregrounding vulnerability, the book advocates 'confusion' as an epistemological and ethical device, and employs it to meditate on how religious believers, as well as researchers, can cultivate hope amid memories of suffering and on-going violence.


Keywords: Christianity (religions); politics; wars; peace; violence (activity); religion and religions; church (institution); society; contradictions; conflicts (societal events); postwar period; progress of a society

Free keywords: Uganda


Contributing organizations


Ministry reporting: Yes

VIRTA submission year: 2022

JUFO rating: 2


Last updated on 2024-12-10 at 12:30