Paper short abstract:

Explanations of misfortune among Acholis in northern Uganda are often attributed to social or cosmological transgressions. The paper explores how responses to suffering even when plausibly attributable to human causes are often less about accountability and more about addressing symptoms of distress.

Paper long abstract:

Since the guns have fallen silent in 2006 and the work of creating a new normal is steadily underway in northern Uganda many people continue to live with a staggering level of physical, mental, spiritual and ontological distress--much of which might be understood as being caused or at least exacerbated by the 20-year war. As they pursue greater wellbeing people search for and assign causes to their suffering. These interpretations in turn determine fitting responses. This paper reflects on ethnographic work over the past seven years of living in the Acholi sub-region focused on gender and violence, particularly rape, notions of sexual transgression and what takes place afterwards. I have come to find that often in the wake of violence and issuant suffering, the answer to the proverbial question "why?" from those who experienced it is unexpected. The causes of misfortune are commonly found in social or cosmological transgressions. In the lives of many of my informants a particularly dangerous and endemic social malady appears to be jealousy.

Rooted in the broader ethnographic context, the paper reflects at length on the story of a woman who recounted the terrifying experience of rape in the spiritual world by a malevolent spectre allegedly sent by jealous relatives. The paper explores how responses to suffering, even when plausibly attributable to human causes (whether intentional or not) are often less about accountability and more about addressing symptoms of distress.