Conceptual Resilience in the Language and Lives of Resilient People: Cases from Northern Uganda

Abstract

ABSTRACT This special issue explores post-conflict recovery in northern Uganda from the perspective of survivors themselves. Normative notions of resilience are widely critiqued as reductive, depoliticising and simplistic. Although the papers here, based on ethnographic methodologies, are largely sympathetic to this understanding, they also suggest that consideration of resilience should not be abandoned. The papers offer insights into how communities’ experiences and strategies of resilience often diverge from the ambitions of international actors. They demonstrate that micro-level studies of real people’s experiences of post-conflict recovery allow space for wider comparative and theoretical insights to emerge.