Buried in the Heart
Women, Complex Victimhood and the War in Northern Uganda

The book explores the concept of complex victimhood through stories of women who were abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army.

Erin Baines (Author)

9781316502099, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 10 May 2018

177 pages, 12 b/w illus.
23 x 15.3 x 1 cm, 0.35 kg

'Buried in the Heart is essential reading for scholars of the Ugandan case and practitioners in the Uganda context. Moreover, the book will be of considerable interest and benefit to scholars and practitioners in the broader field of gender, conflict, and transitional justice.' Catherine O'Rourke, Gender & Development

In Buried in the Heart, Erin Baines explores the political agency of women abducted as children by the Lord's Resistance Army in northern Uganda, forced to marry its commanders, and to bear their children. Introducing the concept of complex victimhood, she argues that abducted women were not passive victims, but navigated complex social and political worlds that were life inside the violent armed group. Exploring the life stories of thirty women, Baines considers the possibilities of storytelling to reclaim one's sense of self and relations to others, and to generate political judgement after mass violence. Buried in the Heart moves beyond victim and perpetrator frameworks prevalent in the field of transitional justice, shifting the attention to stories of living through mass violence and the possibilities of remaking communities after it. The book contributes to an overlooked aspect of international justice: women's political agency during wartime.

List of figures
Preface
Foreword
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction
2. The new Acholi
3. The originals
4. Grandmother
5. Seven stories
6. Conclusions
Light Juliane Okot Bitek
Index.

Subject Areas: Criminal justice law [LNFB], Private international law & conflict of laws [LBG], International law [LB], War crimes [JWXK], Sexual abuse & harassment [JFFE2], True war & combat stories [BTM]