Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how and why nudity is used in public life. Using evidence from northern Uganda, we suggest understanding the use of bared bodies as a 'protest-curse' and evaluate explanations for naked political action and its effectiveness in changing socio-political realities.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores how and why nudity is used in public life and to what effect.

Using northern Uganda as a case study, the paper speaks to broader discussions within scholarship on naked protest, the body and public authority. Numerous scholars have written about naked protest particularly in the African context focused on the gendered body. Here we bring the gendered bodily analysis into discussion with the political body, and examine how cursing as an affect relates to and shapes the nature of naked protest against state forces. In Uganda, the state has an overwhelming preponderance over the use of force and has illustrated its willingness to use that violence against public protesters (Tapscott 2016, 2017). The paper evaluates explanations for naked political action and its potential to effect socio-political realities in this context.

The paper examines first the context of nudity as a means of negotiating public life in Acholi and Ugandan culture, it then puts this into context of analyses of naked protest in broader scholarly perspective, and finally looks in depth at instances where nudity was used against the Ugandan state. In light of this, we offer an analysis of the potential power of bared bodies to create an affect of shame through a performance of extreme frustration. We suggest understanding the use of bared bodies in political action as a 'protest-curse' which asserts a moral terrain of debate over a political or economic rationality preferred by state actors.