Award Information
The project examines how northern Uganda is re-imagined by the agency of war memorials. Memorial sites like Barlonyo, Attiak, Lukodi, and Apala are selected because being the sites in which mass massacres occurred, they now represent a totalizing, yet "selective", history of the war, which unfortunately articulates largely the grand narratives of the state and other interventionists. Major narratives crafted around these memorials ignore the everyday experiences and memories of the war. Because the war affected ordinary people more, their voices need not be eclipsed by the official versions of the state and non governmental organizations. Technologies of memory that ordinary people use to counter the forced and selective remembering orchestrated by the state and other power holders is one instrument that the project focuses on. Who created these monuments? How does their authorship impact on the modes of reading and interpreting societies emerging from war ?