After Rape : Violence, Justice, and Social Harmony in Uganda

Unique in literature on gender-based violence in Africa, this ethnography of rape and its aftermath locates the staggering level of sexual violence women experience within broader northern Ugandan realities in a post-war context. A provocative study for scholars of gender studies, post-conflict recovery and transitional justice, and anthropologists.

Following the ICC intervention in 2005, northern Uganda has been at the heart of international justice debates. The emergent controversy, however, missed crucial aspects of Acholi realities: that the primary moral imperative in the wake of wrongdoing was not punishment but, instead, the restoration of social harmony. Drawing upon abundant fieldwork and in-depth interviews with almost 200 women, Holly Porter examines issues surrounding wrongdoing and justice, and sexual violence and rape, among the Acholi people in northern Uganda. This intricate exploration offers evidence of a more complicated and nuanced explanation of rape and its aftermath, suggesting a re-imagining of the meanings of post-atrocity justice, whilst acknowledging the role of sex, power and politics in all sexual experiences between coercion and consent. With its wide investigation of social life in northern Uganda, this provocative study offers vital analysis for those interested in sexual and gender violence, post-conflict reconstruction and human rights.