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Africa Knows! It is time to decolonise minds

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Accepted Paper: E33-02. To panel E33.

Title of paper:

Authors:

Jan Knipping (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz);

Nico Nassenstein (JGU Mainz).

Long abstract paper:
Since the withdrawal of Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) from Northern Uganda in 2006, the Acholi region is no longer labeled as a 'no-go-zone' or red area for visitors and researchers. However, decades of war and conflict in this region, the records of which can even be traced back at least to early colonial times, have left their psychological and physical marks on the Acholi people who strive to regain socioeconomic 'normality' in a post-conflict setting.

Additionally, ongoing conflicts in bordering South Sudan and Eastern Congo recently led to an influx of refugees to Northern Uganda, which poses new challenges to its residents, e.g. resulting in land grabbing by the widely unpopular government and its reallocation to refugees. On the other hand, several sources - ranging from 19th century European travelogues to 21st century ethnographies including self-descriptions of Acholi thinkers and academics - laud an extraordinary hospitality of these people. A linguistic analysis of discourses of hospitality and hostility among the Acholi seems a promising approach to grasp the perception and conception of 'Others' from an emic perspective so that a better understanding of Acholi perspectives on this issue can be gained.

However, conducting such research in a region where (past) conflicts were caused on the basis of ascriptions of 'Otherness' that led to stereotypical images of a militarized, war-prone and ferocious Acholi people that still inform contemporary discourses in Uganda, raises several theoretical and ethical questions that invite a discussion in this presentation: How can such a study be conducted without reproducing stereotypes and without making resurface existing resentments towards Others in this war-torn region? Who is invited to talk and who desires to talk about these issues? Which data is expected to be generated in a discourse linguistic study in the discipline of African Linguistics? How can a (transdisciplinary) collaboration with a local university enhance the understanding of specific concepts (hospitality vs. hostility etc.)? In how far can such an approach challenge and decolonize dominant epistemes of cosmopolitanism by adding a 'Southern' perspective?

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