Ph.D. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution
The Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution

Notice of Oral Defense of Doctoral Dissertation

Krista-Anne Rigalo

B.A., Communications Arts, Marist College, 1987
M.A., Agricultural Education, Clemson University, 1991
M.A., Conflict Transformation, Eastern Mennonite University, 2000

"The Politics of Ritual: Exploring Discourse Regarding the Use of Ritual in Northern Uganda"

Friday, October 2nd, 2009
2:30 - 4:30 pm
Truland Building, Room 555
George Mason University, Arlington Campus

Abstract:

This dissertation explores and analyzes the discourses generated by two distinct stakeholder groups, the Acholi Cultural Leaders and five groups forming the Human Rights/Advocacy group, with regards to the use of ritual in responding to atrocities in northern Uganda. This dissertation delineates how discourse on human rights/transitional justice exemplifies, negotiates and mitigates power between those in support of ICC trials and those in support of Acholi rituals. By analyzing the intertext and interdiscourse relationship between those advocating international trials and those advocating local ritual, this dissertation will demonstrate how discourse has shaped (and is shaped by) politics and power in northern Uganda.

From a distinctly Foucaldian theoretical base regarding discourse and discursive practices, I use a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) methodology to analyze and interpret the discourse of 32 Acholi Cultural Leaders (ACL) interviewed during the field research portion of this project (collected in Kampala, Kitgum and Gulu, November 23- December 15, 2007), as well as the written and published discourse from five Human Rights/Advocacy groups (HR/A), 28 examples of discourse limited to a publication date of December 15, 2007. CDA methodology facilitates the analyses of the discourses as text, discursive practice, as well as social practice, but also to link them to the larger epistemological commitments of communitarianism (ACL) or cosmopolitanism (HR/A).

The findings demonstrate that the ACL group, wedded to a grievance narrative which holds the Government of Uganda accountable for their victimization by the LRA but also the relative deprivation they feel they have suffered, support the use of ritual as the most appropriate method for addressing the atrocities, restoring social harmony but also rehabilitating the identity of the Acholi as full-fledged members of the Ugandan nation-state. The HR/A discourse is defined by the use of a rhetoric of atrocity, the criminalization of Kony and the top leaders of the LRA and a referral to international law as the justice-making standard to meet. From this basis the HR/A group discursively positions the ICC as the most appropriate method for establishing and promoting justice in northern Uganda. The nature of the interdiscursivity between these two positions was found to be largely incongruent and, on several key points, contentious. A few instances of mutual influence were found, but overall the state of vernacularization of the human rights discourse was nascent at best during the research period.

Dissertation Committee: