Negotiating Narratives of the Ugandan
Conflict (2006-2015): International and
Local NGOs Amidst Power, Truth, and
Resistance
Name: Elena Preziosa Student Number: s1799673 Supervisor: Dr. Jelle van Buuren
Thesis submitted in part-fulfilment of the MSc programme in Crisis and Security Management, Leiden University. (July 2017)
Table of Contents
ABSTRACT 5
1. INTRODUCTION 6
SCHOLARSHIP:NGOS’ROLE IN CONFLICT AND PEACE 6
RESEARCH QUESTION 11
2. POST-DEVELOPMENT THEORIES AND FOUCAULT’S NOTIONS OF POWER,
KNOWLEDGE AND RESISTANCE: A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 11
INTRODUCTION 11
POST-DEVELOPMENT THEORIES AND POWER 12
CRITICISMS TO POST-DEVELOPMENT 14
RE-READING POST-DEVELOPMENT THEORIES THROUGH FOUCAULT 16 POWER,KNOWLEDGE AND RESISTANCE IN FOUCAULT’S THOUGHT 17
CONCLUSION 20
3. DISCOURSE AND CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS 22
INTRODUCTION 22
LANGUAGE AND DISCOURSE:ADISCOURSE-THEORETIC APPROACH 22
WHY UGANDA? 25
ANALYSING NGOS’NARRATIVES 26
CONCLUSION 28
4. ANALYSIS: INTERNATIONAL NGOS’ NARRATIVES 29
REMEMBERING THE ‘FORGOTTEN WAR’: INTERNATIONAL NGOS’ NARRATIVES IN THE LIGHT OF THE JUBA
PEACE TALKS, 2006-2008. 29 Construction of the Self: The Awakening of the ‘International Community’ 29 LRA: From the irrational evil to ‘the Kony Problem’ 32 The Government of Uganda as ‘Weak’ and ‘Incapable to Deal with the Conflict’ 35 The Juba Peace Talks: Peace on the Road to Development 37 Peace on the Road to Development As Impossible Without Justice 39 FROM NEGOTIATIONS TO MILITARY MEANS: OPERATION LIGHTING THUNDER 2008-2010 42
Changing Language: From Words to Weapons 42
Self, Near Other and Radical Other 42
Peace, Development and Justice: Competing Discourses 46
THE AFRICAN UNION-LED REGIONAL TASK FORCE AND THE U.S. INVOLVEMENT: KONY 2012 AND THE
ARREST OF DOMINIC ONGWEN IN 2015 47
Discursive shifts and Constructions of Self, Near Other, and Radical Other 47
“Kony 2012”: Total War against Kony 49
Justice: Prosecuting Perpetrators? 50
CONCLUSION 52
5. ANALYSIS: LOCAL NGOS’ NARRATIVES 54
PEACE THROUGH PEACE: LOCAL NGOS’ CONSTRUCTIONS OF THE JUBA PEACE TALKS: 2006-2008. 54
Self, Near Other, Radical Other 54
Peace as the ‘Absence of Violence’ 57
Community-level Justice First 57
Underdevelopment as a cause of the war/development as the road towards peace 59 MILITARY MEANS AGAINST PEACE: LOCAL NGOS CONSTRUCTIONS OF ‘OPERATION LIGHTING THUNDER’
2008-2010 60
Self, Near Other, Radical Other 60
Military Expenses and ‘Arrested’ Development 62
Justice 62
THE AFRICAN UNION-LED REGIONAL TASK FORCE AND THE INCREASING U.S. INVOLVEMENT: FROM KONY
2012 TO THE ARREST OF DOMINIC ONGWEN IN 2015 63
Kony 2012: Local NGOs’ reactions 64
Justice: Dominic Ongwen’s Arrest 66
CONCLUSION 67
6. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIVE REMARKS: A READING OF NGOS’ NARRATIVES
THROUGH POST-DEVELOPMENT THEORIES AND FOUCAULT 69
DO INTERNATIONAL AND LOCAL NGOS’ NARRATIVES MATCH? 69 ACCOUNTING FOR DIFFERENCES: OF POWER, IDEAS, AND RESISTANCE 71
7. BIBLIOGRAPHY 76
“If there was no resistance, there would be no Power relations. Because it
would simply be a matter of obedience. You have to use power relations to refer
to the situation where you're not doing what you want. So resistance comes
first, and resistance remains superior to the forces of the process; power
relations are obliged to change with the resistance.” Michel Foucault
1
1Michel Foucault. “Sex, Power and the Politics of Identity” in Foucault Live: Interviews (1961-1984) ed. By
Abstract
In this paper I call for a re-examination of NGOs as power-driven entities. Drawing upon post-development theories and Foucault’s notions of ‘power’, ‘knowledge’ and ‘resistance’, I look at the narratives of both international and local NGOs during the last phase of the conflict between the Ugandan government and the LRA in Central Africa (2006-2015). I compare and contrast both narratives, showing how both types of organisations oppose each other’s dominant discourses, making certain ideas and practices seductive while discouraging others. First, I suggest that to acknowledge and uncover these power relations is essential when considering NGOs and their crucial role in conflict settings, especially in contexts shifting from ‘war’ to ‘peace’. Secondly, by reading competing narratives of both types of NGOs through post-development theories and Foucault, I attempt to show how ‘power’ does not permeate only international, western, NGOs but also local ones, which not only ‘resist’ but also speak back to the international ones.
1. Introduction
In April 2017, the U.S. government and the Ugandan government announced the official withdrawal of advisors and military forces that had been deployed central Africa to capture the Lord’s Resistance Army’s (LRA) leader, Joseph Kony. The announcement triggered a new wave of interest in the conflict between the Ugandan government led by Yoweri Museveni and the LRA that began in the mid-1980s and that eventually resolved in the non-capture of Kony and the withdrawal of Ugandan forces in 2017. Henceforth, in the light of recent events, the present research seeks to re-examine the conflict and contribute to the plethora of studies having as an objective that to understand the war, its protagonists, and its dynamics throughout time. Moreover, the conflict between the Ugandan government and LRA is particularly interesting because it involved many different entities at local, regional, and international levels, such as local communities, NGOs, international governmental organisations such as the AU, the UN, African governments such as Uganda, DRC, Sudan, CAR or western governments such as the United States. Within the multitude of actors that were involved in the conflict, NGOs had a particularly important role; I am therefore particularly interested in these entities. Moreover, since scholarship about NGOs’ role in conflict and peace seldom analyses different types of NGOs and seldom analyses them in terms of their narratives, I am particularly interested on NGOs’ representations of conflict and peace during the war and in analysing these narratives produced by different types of NGOs. For the purpose of this study, I will focus on narratives of international and local NGOs. First, I suggest that a discourse analysis of these different types of NGOs in the case of Uganda can shed light on important considerations about these actors and their role in countries transitioning from war to peace. Secondly, drawing upon post-development theories and Foucault’s understanding of power, I intend to show how international and local NGOs are power-driven entities, in that their discourses about the conflict construct, mobilise, and promote certain ideas while trying to discourage others, thereby competing to put forward one view rather than the other.
Scholarship: NGOs’ Role in Conflict and Peace
The literature that constitutes the skeleton of this study speaks to the role of NGOs in conflict and peace and to the increasing importance that these actors have gained in dealing with conflict and peace dynamics. Therefore, this work is based upon two main streams of literature, one concerning peace building and one concerning conflict resolution. The
rationale behind choosing these streams of literature is that they speak to the importance that these entities have in war and peace settings and that they shed light on the research gaps in the scholarship about NGOs in conflict/peace settings.
The role of NGOs in conflict resolution and peace keeping/building has been largely discussed among scholars of various disciplines. In general, scholars acknowledge that NGOs’ number and relevance has dramatically increased since 1990s and they generally attribute such increase to the evolution and change of the nature of conflict itself after the end of the Cold War era. (See Abiew 2012; Hilhorst and Van Leeuwen 2015; Aall 2010) For example, Salamon (1994) placed the rise of NGOs and the non-for profit sector during the 1990s as well, advancing the idea that a new “global third sector” had arisen and defining these actors as “self-governing private organizations, not dedicated to distributing profits to shareholders or directors, pursuing public purposes outside the formal apparatus of the state”. (Salamon 1994 p. 109) In fact, after the Cold War period, the number of intra-states conflicts dramatically increased; consequently, such increase in number slowly consolidated the tendency to move conflict resolution practices away from traditional diplomatic strategies among countries in favour of more informal settings, such as NGOs. Indeed, such shifting approach towards conflict and peace was the result of an increasing scepticism towards conventional diplomacy, which was thought to be not as effective to deal with such new waves of civil wars. (Aall 2000 p. 124)
Despite their increase in the 1990s, NGOs existed even before that and they did not always present the same characteristics; rather, they underwent a great evolution, having to adapt to a changing international environment that increasingly placed trust in them. (Chandler 2001 p. 678) Up until the Cold War, NGOs were directed by a series of principles of neutrality and non-discrimination. They were free, to a certain extent, from political conditions or associations with certain foreign or defence policies. However, during the post-Cold War era, the involvement of NGOs in conflict situations became to be seen as an opportunity to advocate for whatever group was perceived as the ‘victim’ one. (Chandler 2001 p.694-698) After the end of the Cold war, during the 1990s, NGOs came to be seen as powerful allies for intergovernmental organisations such as the UN. Indeed, NGOs came to play an increasingly important role in multilateral peacekeeping operations. (Abiew Keating 1999 p.89) One of the reasons behind this new image of NGOs was that NGOs were less subjected to the certain principles that limited their actions, such as the sovereignty principle. Indeed, contrarily to
of certain situations on the one hand, while providing assistance on the other. (Abiew Keating 1999 p.93)
Nonetheless, authors such as Abiew (2012) claim that such evolution had its advantages and disadvantages. In fact, if on the one hand NGOs came to be seen as more influential throughout the last two decades, such influence and power came with a price on the other; indeed, NGOs compromised their aura of ‘inviolability’ and ‘neutrality’ that had distinguished them in the previous decades. After the Cold War, NGOs’ role as providers of solely emergency and humanitarian aid slowly shifted towards the image of providers of long-term development projects. Such shift happened as a result of the belief that the causes of conflict could have been addressed through a deeper engagement of humanitarian organizations in politics. (Abiew 2012 p. 206)
Such belief was increasingly strengthened after 9/11, when governments began to see NGOs as powerful instruments to carry out their strategic foreign policy. Such politicisation of humanitarian action led to an increased number of attacks on humanitarian aid workers. The “War on Terror” led to the increasing identification of the advocating against militia leaders and insurgent groups with a step towards safeguarding a space for humanitarian activity. All in all, this process led the loss of perception of NGOs as neutral and independent. (Abiew 2012 p.211) Indeed, in contexts such as Afghanistan and Iraq like in many others, NGOs showed not to be apolitical after all; indeed, while they tried to portray themselves as neutral, they engaged in political activities such as building social institutions, engaging in democratic strengthening and promoting human rights. (Anderson Kenneth 2004 p.42) As a result of this politicisation process, NGOs came to be seen also as not inviolable anymore but as actors involved to a certain degree in the political scene of the conflict/peace processes. (Abiew Keating 1999 p. 93)
Another reason why NGOs came to be seen as essential partners to build long-lasting and sustainable peace was that in 1990s there was the increasing tendency to recognise grassroots action and development programs- tasks traditionally performed by non-governmental organisations acting on the ground such as NGOs- as essential conditions to prevent future conflicts. (Hilhorst van Leeuwen 2005 p.539; Abiew 2012 p.206) Furthermore, it was increasingly thought that prevention to conflict was linked to the building of a strong society, a “civil society” that would lessen differences and decrease the likelihood of conflict to arise. (Prendergast 1997 p. 12; Richards 2003 p.34) The idea of “civil society” therefore became central within the peace building discourse, placing more and more importance on the role
and tasks of NGOs. However, it has been argued that the concept of “civil society” is often reduced to mean NGOs only, or more specifically, international NGOs only, (Anderson 2001 p.49), while excluding other important entities such as religious associations and other social groups, (Goodhand Hulme 1999 p.18)
Despite the great evolution that NGOs underwent in the last decades, there is a great tendency in the literature discussing NGOs to group them as if they represented a unitary category of analysis. (Abiew Keating 1999 p.90) However, NGOs are not a unitary category of organisations; rather, they encompass a wide array of different organisations with different characteristics and tasks. Abiew and Keating (1999 p.90), for example, observe how NGOs include a wide array of organisations with very different features such as the source and quantity of funding, the political and cultural affiliations, the operational practice of the organisation; they can be local or international NGOs, government’s sponsored or autonomous. As for the talks, Aall (2000 p.125) describes how NGOs can deal with humanitarian work, or human rights, conflict resolution or all of these fields together and how they can differ in organisational terms; they can vary in the mix and number of nationalities working for them, the number of locals or international staff or the missions and or the objectives of the organisation.
As for the tasks, NGOs can bring human rights violations to international attention; they work with opposing parties to a conflict and facilitate negotiations between them or assure that a certain peace deal stay in place. (Aall 2000 p.129) In fact, NGOs perform important peace building tasks in the post-conflict phase by engaging in various activities related to advocacy work such as lobbying to obtain the support of the government, providing information to the public and preparing certain campaigns. (Baitenmann 1990 p.78) Moreover, NGOs have some advantages, such as reading the poorest and remote areas; promote local participation, they act at a low cost compared to other, more expensive organisations, they strengthen local institutions and seek to empower marginal groups. (Abiew Keating 1999 p.94) Richmond (2003) notices how NGOs fulfil the tasks that governments cannot and their role in dynamics of peace building, intervention and long-term prevention. In particular, he notices that: “NGOs are worthy of study not because they are omnipotent, but because they are increasingly involved in peace processes, taking on roles that states cannot perform or do not want”. (Richmond 2003 p.3)
governments. (Abiew Keating 1999 p.95) For example, scholars such as De Waal (1998) show how in Somalia at the beginning of the 1990s, NGOs were regarded as more reliable and credible sources of information than the UN itself. Moreover, NGOs may mitigate the effects of a conflict onto the most vulnerable groups by monitoring the situation and by reporting information to the wider public, so as to facilitate relief response to certain emergencies. Therefore, NGOs pose themselves in a middle-ground position between local level and national level, between local entities (e.g. individuals, communities) and national and supra-national governments, having a fundamental role of information and monitoring providers. (Goodhand 1999 p.73)
Because of these characteristics, several scholars have highlighted the complex and ambiguous relationship between governments and NGOs; indeed, Richmond (2003) argues that governments have often tried to manipulate NGOs in order to shape their actions according to their own agenda. (Richmond 2003 p.1) Abiew and Keating (1999 pp. 90-96) highlighted the mutual, interest-based relationship between the two, observing how states after the 1990s showed a declining interest in engaging directly in humanitarian interventions; this, in turn, devolved such responsibility to other actors such as NGOs, which viewed emergencies as a fruitful opportunity to expand their influence and power in their field.
In conclusion, a review of the literature has showed how NGOs have gained an increasingly important role from the 1990s onward with respect to their role in situations of conflict and/or peace and their tasks. Such body of work shows the importance to study these actors in this context. In particular, the role of NGOs as information providers makes the study of their narratives even more important. Furthermore, despite some degree of recognition of the rather diverse character of NGOs and despite the acknowledgement that these actors indeed have a role in shaping conflict/peace situations, NGOs are hardly compared amongst themselves in terms of their narratives; however, an analysis not only of the discourses of different types of NGOs could prove to be beneficial to improve our understanding of these organisations and their impact in conflict and peace dynamics. Indeed, in virtue of NGOs’ role as informants and therefore producers of certain constructed “realities”, to study competing narratives within different kinds of NGOs could be functional to re-assess the power and influence that these organisations have by analysing their role not as a unified category of analysis, rather, as different types of organisations with different types of characteristics. In particular, even though acknowledged by scholarship, the difference
between international and local NGOs and their competing narratives can be further explored as a basis to determine to which extent certain types of NGOs are different and to what degree these differences impact their role and tasks (e.g. information providers).
Research Question
In sum, the present research seeks to contribute to this body of literature by studying competing narratives within different types of NGOs, and in particular between international and local NGOs, by looking at the case of the involvement of international and local NGOs in the conflict between the Ugandan government and the LRA. Indeed, as mentioned before, while the literature acknowledges the role of NGOs in conflict and peace and the different characteristics and tasks of these organisations, there is no discussion on how distinct types of NGOs affect the way in which they make sense of the ideas such as ‘conflict’ or ‘peace’. In particular, the research compares Western, international, NGOs versus local ones, hoping to offer an explanation so as to account for any difference and/or similarities. Therefore, the question that this study seeks to answer is: do international and local NGOs’ narratives
about conflict and peace between the Ugandan government and the LRA match or differ and how can we account for such differences and/or similarities?
2. Post-Development Theories and Foucault’s Notions of
Power, Knowledge and Resistance: A Theoretical
Framework
Introduction
I approach NGOs’ narratives regarding conflict and peace in Uganda by looking at post-development theories and the work about power, knowledge and resistance by the French philosopher Michel Foucault. The rationale behind choosing these theories and authors is that they provide extremely useful insights to uncover the meaning and importance of discourses, the construction of identities and the webs of power relations that are associated with them. In particular, post-development theories speak to the centrality of discourse and power in ideas such as ‘development’, along with its articulations in the form of a series of sub-discourses ranging from ‘economic prosperity’, to ‘human rights’, or ‘good governance’,
development theories developed during the 1970s and 1980s as a theoretical guide through which shedding light on how NGOs’ discourses about development and its articulations are constructed and mobilised to inform ideas of “conflict” and “peace”. To this end, I analyse these narratives in both local and international NGOs so as to compare and contrast them. Secondly, post-development theories draw, at least to a certain extent, upon Foucault’s work and his conception of power and knowledge as being manifest through discourse (Lie 2008 pp.118-120); therefore, I outline Foucault’s ideas about power, knowledge and resistance, suggesting that a stronger incorporation of these ideas would be useful to re-read post-development theories in order to meet certain limitations and uncover power relations within these development/conflict/peace discourses.
Post-Development Theories and Power
Post-development theories are the product of the work of several scholars who engaged in a critique of international development and its institutions during the 1970s through the 1980s. (Lie 2008 p.119) Indeed, the growing discontent associated with development practices in the least strong economies during those decades led an increasing body of scholars to question the very idea of ‘development.’ (Manzo 1991 p.8) Post-development scholars, following Foucault, perceive development as an articulation of a discourse of power, according to which a certain social ‘reality’- e.g. the need for development, a world divided between the ‘North’, wealthy and prosperous, and a ‘South’ of the world, poor and in need for assistance- is promoted by the ‘west’ through the discouragement of every other possible alternative. (Nustad 2004 pp.13-23)
The central assumption of post-development scholars is that development is not an unquestionable and objective concept; rather, it is a constructed idea springing from a typically western2 discourse. (Lie 2008 p.118-120) Sachs (1992 p.111-112) describes how the development discourse, being produced and reproduced, eventually becomes the social ‘reality’ that we perceive as ‘truth’ and to which we get accustomed. Along with it, western values, or the perception thereof, spread throughout its ideas and practices. Drawing upon post-modern theories, post-development scholars argue that the very idea of development carries the western obsession with realising modernity and with reaching progress, thereby
2 Following post-development authors such as Escobar (1995), I arbitrarily employ this term to describe a constructed geopolitical space comprising mainly of Western Europe and United States from which development practices sprang and spread throughout the rest of the world.
constructing a social ‘reality’ in which western values are the only desirable ones. (Sachs 1992 p.113)
Indeed, post-development scholars such as Escobar (1988; 1992; 1995), Esteva (1995), and Shanin (1997) argue that development designs a dimension where the subjects living in it are constructed and placed in a particular position revealing and designing the asymmetrical relations of power linking and separating them. Indeed, these scholars all note how development discourses build oppositional ideas such as “North” as opposed to “South”, “Poor” as opposed to “Rich”, “Developed” as opposed to “Underdeveloped” (or “Developing”). These categories are supposed to represent certain groups of individuals or certain geographical areas of the world and position them in a certain position compared to their oppositional category. This system, in turn, reveals the power position in which they are.
In terms of power, to post-development theorists, power becomes essential to understand how these representations are created and positioned in this constructed social realm. For example, Latouche (1997) perceives development discourses as the extension of a colonial logic for which certain identities (e.g. “the colonised” versus “the colonizers”) are forged and placed in a certain “location” symbolising its power status and the power relationship in relation to its opposite. The “colonised” and its passive voice is evidently placed under the “colonizers”, reflecting an asymmetrical power relationship between the two. (Latouche 1997 pp.135-142) Similarly, post-development theories claim that through development discourses, all those identities that are constructed in a disadvantaged and weak power position (e.g. ‘underdeveloped’, ‘backwards’, ‘Third World’ countries) are constructed against their oppositional categories (e.g. ‘developed’, ‘modern’, ‘First World’ etc.) and placed in contrast to all those values and ideas that characterise the imagined category of the “West”. (Escobar 1995; Brigg 2002; Said 1978) Consequently, categories such as the ‘developed’ and the “West” exist only in the sense that they are opposed to the categories of ‘underdeveloped’ and to the “non-West”; the production of the “West” therefore creates a system of knowledge in which every political, geographical, economical, and social space underneath it is created and occupied by the construction of its opposite. (Escobar 1995 pp.vii-xii)
The consequences of such process is that the more these discourses are spread and reproduced, the more the categories in a power position (e.g. ‘the economically developed’,
and seductive. This, turn, pushes for the promotion and the adoption of certain values and morals that will legitimise the road towards the achievement of those more powerful positions. That is why discourses such as ‘democratisation’ or ‘good governance’, which are increasingly linked to the development discourse, not only tend to promote the ‘western’ perceptions of those ideas (e.g. liberal democratic ideas) but they also make them seductive and desirable to the eyes of those who are constructed and placed in a lower power status through their dominant position and their exercise of power upon them. In other words, social, political and economical change (an articulation of the ‘development discourse’) is promoted to be realisable only through a certain set of values, which are typically western versions of those ideas and spread throughout those in need of such a transformation, the ‘South’ and the ‘Underdeveloped’. (Abrahamsen 2000 p.62) Moreover, the view that portrays development as the only mean toward the realisation of global prosperity may lead those populations considered ‘traditional’ and in need of ‘development’ accept these discourses and to interiorise them, up to a point when they can see themselves as really in need of ‘development’. (Rahnema 1997 pp. ix-xvi)
Furthermore, another consequence of the development discourse is the de-politicisation effects that come with it. Indeed, Ferguson (1997), in his book The Anti-Politics Machine, claims that development tries to legitimise itself by discursively constructing ‘poverty’ as a problem that can only be solved through development. Moreover, poverty is always constructed as a ‘technicality’, namely as a technical problem that requires a technical solution. Indeed, the idea of ‘poverty’ is often constructed in such as way that it pushes the state to engage in purely bureaucratic measures so as to reverse the poverty cycle, without caring to include political solutions. This, in turn, has deeply de-politicising effects, in that it disregards solutions within politics only to transform the state in an “anti-politics machine”. (Ferguson 1997 pp.249-251)
Criticisms to Post-Development
Development is still largely at the centre of most work of western international organisations, governments, and non-governmental entities. However, post-development theories have been often criticised as for not mirroring the current idea of development, being therefore accused of having become irrelevant. Schuurman (2000 pp.15-19), for example, argues that the tight relationship between development theories and modernism thought makes post-development ideas solely governed by anti-modernist premises, which no longer describe the
contemporary idea of development. Post-development consequently becomes, according to Schuurman (2000 pp.15-19), purely concerned with opposing a rhetoric focused on paradigms such as ‘economic growth’ and ‘modernity’, a rhetoric that he perceives as redundant and no longer applicable to current times.
However, while other scholars do agree that the idea of development has changed over time, they also pose that post-development insights have not completely lost their relevance. Indeed, Abrahamsen (2000) claims that the development discourse underwent its major change during the 1990s, when the rhetoric revolving around “growth” and “modernity” left space to new discourses such as “democratisation” or “good governance”, which soon meant the spreading of the westernisation of these ideas. Therefore, post-development theories, even though with different paradigms, still capture the macro dimension of a development discourse that is primarily western-centric in nature. (Abrahamsen 2000 pp.62-64)
Another criticism put forward by some scholars is that post-development theories tend to idealise ideas of poverty and traditional models of societies, picturing an idea of development that is too simplistic and that often denies agency to those who are the targets of development. (Kiely 1999 p.45; Corbridge 1998 pp.140-145) Indeed, the argument goes, the romanticization of poverty and the traditional is so strong that not only it denies agency to everyone outside ‘the west’ but it also disregards any positive aspects that development practices and modernist assumptions might have brought to those societies. (Corbridge 1998 p.145) Others such as Nederveen Pieterse (1998 p.361; 2000 p.183) do not hold the view that post-development theories deny agency to the ‘poor’ but they hold that they push them to decide between tradition and modernity without providing any suitable alternative.
Other views such as Ziai (2004) claim that post-development scholars, despite being different among each other, reduce post-development to only be the expression of a ‘reactionary populism’ and a ‘radical democracy’. This is because, the argument goes, post-development sees traditional cultural values as static and not subjected to change, therefore blindly opposing any promotion of cultural change under the excuse that, even in the event that ‘the traditional’ asks for a change, it has interiorised those discourses, therefore making such a request merely a consequence of a discursive domination process (hence, populism). Moreover, by condemning liberal democratic values, post-development acts as an authoritative force impeding the plurality of ideas and values in a certain society (hence, a radical democracy). (Ziai 2004 pp.1055-1058)
Re-reading Post-Development Theories Through Foucault
While this thesis does not share these views, it recognises that post-development theories might suffer from some limitations; however, it does hold that they can still be extremely relevant and useful. All in all, I suggest that the majority of these critiques stem from a too cynical and to an extent misguided reading of these scholars. Since post-development scholars, by referring to development as a discourse and pointing to the power relations that these discourses create, draw upon Foucault’s work on power and knowledge, (Corbridge 1998 p.138; Nederveen Pieterse 2000 p.176) a closer reading of Foucault’s thoughts about power, knowledge, and resistance could help addressing, at least to a certain extent, post-development’s harsher criticisms, so as to bring to light their potential value.
First, post-development theories might be beneficial if seen in more positive terms. Indeed, post-development theories do not intend to present themselves as comprehensive theories indicating a particular way rather than another one; on the contrary, they provide a starting point from which uncovering certain dynamics useful to think about alternatives. (Brigg 2002 p.424) Indeed, these criticisms, while they may highlight some limitations of development theories, fail to grasp the structural assumptions at the core of post-development thought; post-post-development, in fact, does not intend to offer a comprehensive theory of everything, indicating what development is or what development should be substituted with. Indeed, because of their post-structuralist fibre, it would be ontologically contradictory to provide a theory that would create an alternative system of ‘truth’, as ‘reality’ is what we construct through discourse and discourse is what constructs us. Rather, as Brigg (2002 p.424) highlights, the value of these scholars is to uncover how this system of knowledge, e.g. development, came into being, which are the relations of power that it triggered, and which are the possible consequences. This, in turn, is useful as a theoretical basis to be built upon.
Secondly, a cynical reading of post-development scholars have led some critiques to perceive post-development ideas as inspired by a conspiracy-like view of the ‘west’. (e.g. Ziai 2004) This thesis does not share the more conspiracy-inspired view that the ‘west’ is the solely responsible for producing and spreading certain images in order to impose them onto third parties. Following Foucault, in fact, power is in every relationship, in every domain, in every place and situation and it is never situated in one place. (Foucault 1978: 93) Power is therefore not only in the hands of the dominant group but also on the other side, just in different scales and forms. Therefore, to view post-development theories only in terms of the
west-against-all rhetoric completely misreads Foucault’s understanding of power, which is at
the very basis of post-development ideas.
Thirdly, one the main criticism to post-development theories is that it denies agency to the victims, relegating them in a category of analysis that is not able to speak back to its oppositional and oppressive category. However, I want to suggest that Foucault could come into play and become a useful tool to re-read post-development theories and include his thoughts about power, knowledge and resistance in a stronger way. I suggest that to incorporate and stress Foucauldian notions of ‘resistance’ could indeed shed light on whether certain discourses are accepted and reproduced by the “poor”, “the disadvantaged” and therefore to understand whether they have any agency and what is the process behind it. Power, Knowledge and Resistance in Foucault’s Thought
As suggested in the previous sections, Foucault’s thoughts about power and knowledge could indeed help to shed light onto the potential of post-development thoughts and to re-read these scholars by uncovering their post-structural matrix. First of all, it is important to stress that Foucault never intended to build a theory of power; in fact, his thoughts about power, discourse and knowledge can be put in order only through a reading of his writings. All together, these writings provide with what Foucault understood as “power” and as “discourse”. (Gutting 1994 pp.5-7)
The rationale behind choosing Foucault’s work as a theoretical standpoint from which re-reading post-development scholarship and NGOs’ narratives in Uganda is that Foucault’s thoughts directly speak to the relationship between discourse and power, and between knowledge and power relations. In fact, Foucault is particularly interested in examining the relations between knowledge, power and human subjects. He provides the tools that enable us to uncover certain dynamics of power in certain contexts. Foucault provides a definition of power as a “mode of action which does not act directly and immediately on others. Instead, it acts upon their actions: an action upon action, an existing action on those which may arise in the present or the future…it incites, it seduces, it makes easier or more difficult; in the extreme it constrains or forbids absolutely”. (Foucault 1983 p.220)
Foucault’s idea of power revolutionises the traditional understanding of power. Indeed, power is traditionally understood as something that can be possessed, as a commodity that is primarily repressive and that can be located in a single source, such as a king or a state.
as a unidirectional force; rather, he perceives it as a multidirectional force that manifests itself in every domain, every relationship, and every word. Power is understood not as a possession but something that is exercised, (Gallagher 2008 p.399) stating that “Power is everywhere” (Foucault 1978 p.93); what he meant is that power it is not concentrated in one specific group of people; rather, it is distributed throughout society. That is why to Foucault, power is relational in the sense that power always involves a relationship between at least two entities. Moreover, it can always be viewed as being distributed across different scales, from larger ones (e.g. states) to smaller ones (e.g. individuals). It is important to notice that different scales always influence each other, as power travels and touches multiple trajectories between scales. (Gallagher 2008 pp.403-404) Furthermore, to Foucault, “Power exists only when it is put into action”, (Foucault 1983 p. 219) meaning that power does not operate only on certain occasions but it is always present, in everyday practices, whenever we start an action, a sentence, or a conversation with someone. (Gallagher 2008 p.397)
Indeed, following Nietzsche, Foucault places a great deal of attention to language. In fact, Foucault perceives languages as “discursive formations” that change over time according to the historical context in which they take shape, thereby revealing certain power relations. That is the reason why he proposes to engage in an “archaeology” of the internal conditions of each discourse (e.g. sexuality, punishment) to uncover how certain meanings came into being and changed over time. The objective of his inquiry was therefore to show how rules of a certain discourse are rooted in its own unique relations of power with its own history. (Dore 2009 p.745) In fact, for Foucault, one cannot understand certain systems of knowledge, meaning certain ‘ideas’ or ‘concepts’ by employing parameters of a certain objective truth. Truth is constructed through discourse by subjects and vice versa and it is inevitably intertwined with the context and historical moment in which they are situated. These relations among subjects, discourses, and contexts are permeated with power relations, which constitute regimes of power. Therefore, knowledge and power are for Foucault indissoluble and one cannot be fully understood, or better, interpreted, without the other. (Lie 2008 pp.120-122) In fact, he proposed that there are important shifts in any discussion when looking at the same topic over a certain period of time. However, he did not want to explain these shifts but, on the contrary, his intention was to uncover the structural differences that they embody, together with the shifting dynamics of power they involved. (Rouse 2005 p.97) In his ‘archaeological’ inquiry, Foucault stresses that nothing exists outside discourse; since there is not an objective truth, both spoken and written discourses are only acts of
interpretation, since no fact exists outside one’s understanding of a certain issue. Moreover, what regulates the connection between the subject and his truth is a “spatial” relation, in the sense that each discourse places a certain idea in a certain position, which eventually constructs a certain ‘truth’. When someone describes something, the way in which he/she will describe that something will construct his/her very ‘reality’. Relations of power, states Foucault, permeate this ‘reality’ and operate through it. (Dore 2009 pp.745-746) Through certain discursive formations and certain systems of knowledge, certain ‘truths’ are constructed and imposed by a certain body upon another one. ‘Truth’ is therefore seen as an expression of the exercise of power of someone over someone else. In particular, Foucault sees the state as the embodiment of power and he identifies three main kinds of power, namely disciplinary power (the state surveys different aspects of its citizens’ lives to establish to what extent do they conform to the ‘norm’, to the law they themselves created), bio power (the state controls and monitor births and deaths rates/sexual practices, public health) and pastoral power (the state exercises its power through figures such as the police or doctors who pose themselves as security providers), which are ways in which modern states have exercised domination over their citizens. (Dore 2009 pp.741-746)
Moreover, power is conventionally seen as something that is static and has no movement; on the contrary, for Foucault power is productive in the sense that it produces ‘truth’ and ‘reality’, along with the individual and the knowledge that might be gained from it. Power exists only when “it is out into action”, in the sense that it is an action or a set of actions acting upon the action of others (hence, the capacity to act on others) and because power is in constant operation, there are high chances that it will produce asymmetrical and non-egalitarian relations. (Gallagher 2008 pp.397-398)
Moreover, because of these characteristics, power always carries a degree of intentionality, even though such intentionality is not always ‘subjective’. Indeed, Foucault understands the exercise of power as having aims and objectives, which, however, do not result from the choice of one individual subject. Subjects in fact do not have the monopoly over the effects of their actions. (Gallagher 2008 pp.397-398) Foucault states that power relations are both “intentional and non-subjective”: intentional because power is exercised having certain objectives in mind (when someone says/writes a statement creating a certain ‘truth’ there is always a certain intention from the speaker/writer side) but it is non subjective in the sense that relations of power are such that it would be impossible to determine the subject from
because power is distributed throughout society and it is in constant action being in continuous transformation, and because power is the action to act upon the actions of others, the degree of intentionality or the objectives of a certain statements, despite being there, are too difficult to trace back to a single subject. (Foucault 1991; Dore 2009 pp.740-741)
Power is everywhere, is relational, subjective but non-intentional and is the expression of certain systems of knowledge, certain ‘truths’, which are discursively created by certain subjects and vice versa. But is power never able to settle down? To Foucault, power can be stabilised. The ideas and mechanisms through which power can be stabilised fall under Foucault’s doctrine of “domination”. Domination occurs when certain power relations become more stable, hierarchical, fixed and become therefore more difficult to reverse. Indeed, “Domination refers to those asymmetrical relationships of power in which the subordinated persons have little room for manoeuvre because their “margin of liberty” is extremely limited”. (Lemke 2002 p.53) However, domination as any other exercise of power always potentially encounters resistance. Foucault states that: “where there is power there is resistance, and yet, or rather consequently, this resistance is never in a position of exteriority in relation to power”. (Foucault 1991: 95) Indeed, manifestations of power such as domination, here understood as the realisation of the purpose of a certain body upon another body, are achieved when the resistance from the body that the other is trying to dominate is at its minimum. Indeed, the very idea of power includes a coercive capacity of a certain body to act upon another body without its consent, to which always corresponds a degree of resistance. In fact, a relation of power implies an effort to control/influence the conduct of someone else and therefore such relation will naturally encounter many points of resistance. (Dore 2009 pp.740-747) Therefore, Foucault does not deny agency to neither subjects trying to exercise power on other subjects nor those who try to resist. When the exercise of power occurs, power always takes into account the possible forms of resistance of the other part, be that acceptance or continuous contestation of that power. Resistance is therefore not about rejecting the exercise of power; on the contrary, it is about trying to contest it through power itself, which may even lead to change. (Flohr 2016 pp.38-40)
Conclusion
In this chapter, I offered an overview of post-development scholarship and how it speaks to the construction of development discourse and the power relations implied in it. Furthermore, I reviewed the main criticisms to post-development scholars and suggested that they could be
addressed, at least to a certain extent, by incorporating Foucault’s thoughts about power, knowledge and resistance more evidently. Indeed, by perceiving power not as static but as a multiplicity of power relations going in every direction and touching upon every subject, not denying agency to those who are being exercised power upon and by including the concept of resistance and potentiality of change could speak back to the criticisms put forward by certain scholars. Furthermore, it could pose interesting results to analyse how certain discourses are ‘fought back’ and whether they are successful in reversing processes of power.
Therefore, these insights are the theoretical standpoint from which I look at international and local NGOs’ narratives about conflict and peace in Uganda, so as to understand to what extent and how development discourses, be them articulated in discourses aiming at the conflict resolution/post-conflict phase, are accepted and spread by local NGOs or whether and how they are resisted instead.
3. Discourse and Critical Discourse Analysis
Introduction
I am interested in analysing NGOs narratives, and therefore, their discourses. The war in Northern Uganda triggered a wave of interest in many Western and local NGOs, which directed their focus on addressing the conflict by telling what was happening the ground. To this end, NGOs produced a large amount of material to represent violence and peace in the country. I therefore approach NGOs narratives in Uganda by looking at the production of these discourses through an analysis of their reports, press releases, video content while also conducting interviews to a number of NGO workers working on conflict resolution/peace projects, especially at the local level. To this end, in what follows I attempt to show what is discourse and what is discourse analysis and how such a method can help uncovering their constructions and political/societal significance. All in all, I hope to show that a discourse-theoretic approach is essential to uncover political and social meanings as constructed through our language.
Language and Discourse: A Discourse-Theoretic Approach
Being both post-development theories and Foucault’s understanding of power focused on how we construct the world through the way we talk about the world, I am interested in discourses, their formation, and their potential as social ‘reality’ creators. Foucault in The
Archeology of Knowledge describes language as a series of statements that, if taken together,
contribute to form ‘the objects of which they speak’. (Foucault 1974 p.49) Indeed, these statements, observed in their continuity, form what Foucault refers to as ‘discursive formations’, meaning discourses; such discursive formations are produced according to certain systems of rules that create certain ‘objects’ of knowledge. Words are ordered and used according to certain rules (grammar, syntax etc.); these orders form statements that represent certain concepts, ideas that we eventually attach to certain material objects. For example, to describe a material object with which a person can write something on paper, one might use the word ‘pen’, as this particular word has come to designate the very idea of ‘pen’. Consequently, these discursive formations always imply a subjective (never in the hands of a single individual but rather in the hands of the many) attachment of a certain idea to a certain object (e.g. someone or a group of individuals at some point in time decided that ‘pen’ would come to describe the material object with which a person can write on paper),
therefore becoming an ‘object of knowledge’. Moreover, these processes carry the intentions of the subject, which, as highlighted in the previous section, are always the product of a certain historical context and which are never in the hands of a single individual but, on the contrary, displaced throughout a certain social group. (Foucault 1974 pp.49-50)
Indeed, to Foucault, (1974) the subject who produces a certain discourse is never detached from what he/she speaks of; on the contrary, the subject is inside discourse. In fact, he/she is also constructed through discourse and he/she is a function of it. Fairclough (1992 pp.22-24; 2003 pp.28-29) claims that this vision of the subject denies agency to it, arguing that the subject is able to also reconstruct these discourses. However, such vision reveals a too negative understanding of Foucault’s conception; in fact, it excludes notions of intentionality and resistance as mentioned in the previous section that precisely speak to way in which there is always the possibility to speak back to a certain discourse, to reverse it, and to change it. The subject therefore does have agency in that there is always a degree of intentionality in what subjects produce as objects of knowledge even though such intentionality is diluted with the intentionality of other subjects. (Gallagher 2008 p.403-404; Flohr 2016 p.44)
Because of these features, discursive formations and social ‘reality’ are always interlinked among each other in a continuous mutual constructing relationship. (Foucault 1974 p.50) It is precisely because of this relationship between discourses and social ‘realities’ that the study of discourse becomes especially important. Indeed, since to post-structuralists, ‘reality’ does not exist but it is discursively manufactured, language is what constitutes the objects, subjects, and everything that constructs and describes such ‘reality’. Language is therefore imbued with social and political practices that aim at the continuous construction of what we perceive as our ‘reality’. (Shapiro 1981 quoted in Hansen 2006 p.16) To discourse analysts, the linkage between discourses and social ‘realm’ is such that the way in which we talk always denotes a form of social practice. Language has, in fact, different social functions, in that it shapes the identity of the subjects within the social realm; it constructs the relationships between these subjects and builds the ideational character of how certain statements purport representations of the social realm. Consequently, the importance and value of studying discourse is that through discourse one is able to look at how certain social ‘realities’ come into being. (Fairclough 1992 pp.22-24; 2003 pp.8-9) Moreover, “discourse opens a window on social problems because social problems are largely constituted in discourse”. (Scollon 2001 p.140)
Furthermore, to study discourses is particularly important because they generate identities that are useful to uncover social and political relationships. Indeed, following Hansen (2006), I understand language as “social and political, an inherently system of signs that generate meanings through a simultaneous construction of identity and difference”. (Hansen 2006 p. 17) Language is therefore a continuously evolving production of meanings that contributes to create the social and political fibre of what we perceive as ‘real’. In this process, the way in which we represent the world produces certain identities while it excludes others. (Hansen 2006 p. 17) For example, to portray Joseph Kony, the LRA leader, as ‘malignant’, ‘barbarous’, and ‘violent’ leader constructs his identity in a way that it excludes every other possible image of him as a ‘good’ and ‘benevolent’ leader.
In trying to analyse NGOs narratives about the conflict/peace in Uganda, I am therefore particularly interested in how discourses purport to construct identities. In fact, the manufacturing of identities often passes through the creation of oppositional categories. To Derrida, language is a system implying a series of juxtapositions in which a certain element acquires a certain value on the basis of its opposite. (Derrida 1976; 1978 quoted in Hansen 2006 pp.17-20) Indeed, discourse produces oppositional identities that can be placed on a trajectory that goes from negative to positive and vice versa. Positive and negative identities are polarized through a process of ‘linking and differentiation’ for which the subject constructs the self and its perceived opposite, its other, and place them in a certain position on that trajectory. The construction of Self and Other is always politically and socially significant in that it sheds light onto the power relations between categories. If a subject represents itself as ‘good’ and ‘competent’ compared to its other, which is placed at its opposite and is therefore implicitly or explicitly ‘bad’ and ‘incompetent’, then the way in which self and other are constructed is revealing of the power position that the Self tried to impose on the Other. (Hansen 2006 pp.21-22; van Dijk 2001 pp.97-99)
Furthermore, because of the power implications they carry, discourses often compete among each other. Therefore, there are winning discourses that manage to push through and others that do not. Consequently, there will always be dominant discourses, minor ones, and others that will be excluded. (Hansen 2006 p.26-28; van Dijk 2001 pp.97-99) In fact, discourses are never constructed by one person alone; rather, they are the work of many different texts in which discursive formations have been negotiated, have competed and have ‘won’; in other words, “texts are often sites of struggle in that they show traces of differing discourses and ideologies contending and struggling for dominance”. (Wodak 2001 p.11) Discourse analysis
therefore allows to find traces of these juxtaposing discourses and to uncover constructed power relationships as portrayed in language through texts. (Wodak 2001 pp.11-12)
The construction of Self and Other implies a struggle between opposites; however, it should not be perceived as a simple oppositional rhetoric. On the contrary, Self and Other imply different degrees of radicalization, which do not make them static, but on the contrary, in continuous movement among different degrees of radicalisation. Through these different grades of radicalisation, the Self constructs itself, its Other, and it positions these identities in certain power positions along these different scales. (Hansen 2006 p.30)
Because of these characteristics, discourse analysis proves to be theoretically and methodologically valuable to explore NGOs narratives in Uganda. In particular, I am interested in how NGOs, both international and local, undergo processes of linking and differentiation to construct identities in order to represent violence and peace in Uganda. Why Uganda?
Africa represents an extremely interesting setting to study local and international narratives of NGOs. Indeed, in the post-colonial Sub-Saharan Africa of the 1970s and later in the 1980s, the number of NGOs in the continent grew exponentially as a result of the disillusionment of development practices put in place in the previous decades by other entities. During the 1990s, NGOs increasingly took the role of the state as for what pertains the development and conflict resolution/peace building of many parts of the country experiencing war and violence. (Matanga 2010 pp.114-119)
One case in particular, Uganda, proves to be particularly interesting. Uganda presents a high number of NGOs, both international and local. One of the major reasons for their existence and their presence is to address the violent nature of the conflict that the country suffered since 1986, along with the social and economic consequences that impacted the people in several regions of the country. The northern part of the country was particularly affected by a civil war that lasted nearly twenty-two years between the rebel group Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan government led by Yoweri Museveni since 1986. After more than two decades of conflict, peace talks were held in Juba, Sudan, which eventually resulted in a ceasefire between the parties in August 2006. (Finnström 2008 pp.1-29) In 2008, however, the ceasefire came to end and the hostilities between the government and the LRA started again, only with the inclusion of other governments in region, the AU, the UN, and
government announced the withdrawal of its troops from CAR, where the LRA and Joseph Kony was allegedly living. (Africa News 2017)
During the conflict and in particular during the conflict resolution process from 2006 onward, many international and local NGOs became involved in the conflict, performing a wide range of tasks and functions, especially advocacy, relief, and development-related work. One of the most known cases was the ‘Kony 2012’ campaign led by a U.S.-registered NGO called ‘Invisible Children’, which sought to raise awareness of the conflict and advocated for more support from the U.S. government towards the capture of Kony. In consequence, the high number of NGOs that became involved in the conflict, both at international and local levels, and their degree of interest in participating in every effort to end the conflict provide me with a good case to analyse the production of their discourses so as to analyse their similarities and differences.
Analysing NGOs’ Narratives
Since discourses are the expression of particularly intense moments of discussion around a certain argument, (Hansen 2006 p.68) I approach NGOs’ discourses during three phases. These phases represent certain points in time that have been constructed as historically significant by NGOs for the conflict and peace dynamics. In fact, during these moments, the production of discourses is greater and I intend to analyse them so as to understand their construction, how they are mobilised, how they compete, and how they seek to create objects of knowledge. Consequently, I analyse both international and local NGOs’ narratives during the peace negotiations between the Ugandan government and LRA in 2006-2008, during the military offensive named ‘Operation Lighting Thunder’ launched by the Ugandan government together with South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2008-2010, and during the African Union-led Regional Task Force from 2011-present; as for the last phase, I read texts produced during the two most salient moments, 2012 when the U.S. granted his support in the form of 100 advisors on the ground and 2015, when the military arrested one of the LRA members, Dominic Ongwen. The rationale behind choosing these moments is that they triggered the attention of many NGOs, both at the local and international levels, attention that produced a large amount of texts to raise awareness of the conflict and play a role in the conflict resolution process.
As for NGOs selection and text selection, I approach these discursive moments through a reading of reports, press releases and video production of both international and local NGOs
around the conflict and peace dynamics between the government of Uganda and the LRA during those time frames. The majority of international NGOs and their texts have been selected through the portal Reliefweb.int, a website of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), concerned with reporting humanitarian crises and disasters, collecting information, updates, reports, press releases and the like according to date and topic of one’s choice. Text selection has therefore included all documents regarding the conflict between the government of Uganda and the LRA for the years 2006-2008, 2008-2010, 2012 and 2015. Moreover, few documents have been included from other years because of their particular relevance to the phases under study. As for the local NGOs and their texts, I identified the local NGOs that dealt with the conflict in Northern Uganda during those time frames through the help of several NGOs listing portals such as Uganda National NGO Directory (ugandangodirectory.org) and insightonconflict.org/Uganda. By cross-referencing these websites, it was possible to identify the NGOs that were more active during the times analysed in this study; by consulting their websites, it was also possible to gather texts according to their relevance (around the Juba Peace Talks for example, or Operation Lighting Thunder) and date of release.
Moreover, since the broader objective is to understand the construction of these discourses so as to compare and contrast how the two build identities, and promote certain discourses while discouraging others, I approach the analysis of these texts by coding them inductively. The rationale for choosing to code the texts inductively is that discourse analysis and post-structural thought revolve around the fundamental observation that every representation is a social construct; likewise, a pre-defined code would be a construction itself through which I would have to look at the texts. Although nothing exists outside interpretation, inductive coding allows me to reduce to a certain extent such risk, by allowing discourses to arise from the texts themselves, while also maintaining the process as transparent and systematic as possible. For these reasons, I first read the texts in order to identify the key and most recurrent discourses strands; secondly, I proceed to re-read the texts and code them according to these discourse strands.3 As I am concerned with understanding the representations and constructions of certain identities, I primarily look at identity formation from certain subjects, such as INGOs and local NGOs of other subjects such as the LRA and the Ugandan government. For example, in a discourse strand describing the LRA, I look for attributes and values attached to the word ‘LRA’ such as ‘brutal’, ‘violent’, ‘amoral’ and so forth. Through
a collection of these descriptions, I therefore look at how these identities are constructed at different points in time, if they evolve or not, how they are mobilised in which discourses, and which explanations can be given to account for these changes.
Furthermore, because the number of texts at the local level is smaller than those of the international NGOs, I also conduct Skype interviews with five directors/programme managers of local NGOs who have worked and/or are currently working with conflict-related projects in Uganda. I conduct semi-structured interviews with both closed and open-ended questions. However, I do not use the interviews as part of my data but I use them to exclusively increase my own understanding of the local perspective.
Finally, as for the limitations of the present study, following post-structuralist thought, I acknowledge that nothing exists outside interpretation, as ‘reality’ is non-existent. Therefore, I do not claim to offer an objective study on NGOs’ narratives around the conflict; rather, I offer an interpretive piece of work on NGOs’ narratives during the Ugandan conflict.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I have shown how discourse and discourse analysis are valuable to shed light on how subjects construct their ‘social realities’ through language, how they designs webs of power and position themselves and the others accordingly. ‘Discursive formations’, as Foucault (1974) calls them, are therefore telling of these constructions and therefore essential in order to study narratives. Therefore, I suggest that a discourse-theoretic approach and, discourse analysis more specifically, could be useful to analyse NGOs competing narratives in the Ugandan context, so as to look at them through the eyes of post-development insights and Foucault’s notions of power, knowledge, and resistance, analyse their similarities and above all their differences.
4. Analysis: International NGOs’ Narratives
Remembering the ‘Forgotten War’: International NGOs’ Narratives in the light of the Juba Peace Talks, 2006-2008.
Construction of the Self: The Awakening of the ‘International Community4’
Few months ahead of the beginning of the Juba Peace Talks in South Sudan in 2006, the Ugandan Archbishop John Baptist Odama, Archbishop of the Gulu district in Northern Uganda, was standing before the United Nations Security Council in New York to report the war in Northern Uganda. Soon after his speech, many international NGOs started to write about the conflict progressively and advocating for action from international organisations. For example, Mercycorps (2006) was denouncing “Twenty years of Silent Disaster”, while Oxfam International was calling for international awareness and UN action on the war that led to “millions of deaths and caused almost five million people to flee cross borders or become displaced inside their countries”. (Oxfam International 2006) Geoffrey Dennis, Chief Executive of CARE international few days later, describing the conditions of the IDP camps in which Ugandans were gathered by the Ugandan government, was denouncing that the conditions of the camps were contributing “to 918 unnecessary deaths every week”. (CARE International 2006) Along these lines, Caritas was picturing Uganda as a place “where a 20-year insurgency marked by child abductions and random actors of violence against civilians have made any semblance of normal life a distant memory”, a place where “insecurity” prohibited international NGOs from providing “relief” and services. (Caritas International 2006) Refugees International was describing the terrible conditions of the IDP camps, also reporting that one woman in the camps told the organisations that: “NGOs and the UN should come more often”. (Refugees International 2006a)
As it can be observed, soon after Odama’s speech, INGOs’ narratives around the war start to construct a certain ‘reality’ of what was happening in Uganda and what had to be done. Indeed, the description of the war as being “forgotten” and “silent” increases a sense of urgency to acknowledge the situation from the side of the international community and to act upon it. Moreover, to describe the war as ‘forgotten’ creates the rhetorical illusion that no action has been taken towards ending the war, thereby reinforcing the belief that someone has
