The 'Untold' Stories of Outsiders and Their Relevance for the Analysis of (Post-)Conflict Figurations. Interviews with Victims of Collective Violence in Northern Uganda (West Nile)

Abstract

We have conducted interviews with women and men who are victims of collective violence in the region of West Nile in northern Uganda, by the hands either of rebels or members of various government armies. We show the position and relevancy of their perspectives in public discourses in and about this region. Using biographical-narrative interviews and group discussions, we highlight how their voices are subdued in public discourses in which ex-rebels present themselves as victims of history. The interviews illustrate that the narrative interview method is of help also in this non-European research setting as it supports the interviewees to verbalise what they have suffered. The analysis of how collective violence is thematised in the interviews as well as in public discourses brings about important insights into the perspectivity and the biases of these discourses and how these were generated. For this reason (amongst others), it is important, when analyzing the region's recent history as well as (post-)conflict figurations in general to accommodate the biographical experiences of victims of collective violence.