01.04.2020

First Fieldwork in Uganda

After four intense weeks, Maike and Hendrik returned from our first field visit in Uganda. A diverse variety of people, ranging from feminist organizations, human rights activists to former combatants, shared with great openness their insights on gender relations and peacebuilding measures.

After four very exciting and insightful weeks we have returned from our first field visit to Uganda. In interviews with many different people, including human rights activists, members of feminist and women’s rights organisations, the police, journalists, former combatants and those working in programmes related to disarmament and reintegration, reforms of the security sector and transitional justice, we were able to gain a first understanding of how the gender relations were affected by different peacebuilding efforts. We are deeply impressed by and very grateful for the openness with which our respondents shared their own experiences with how war and peace impacted their lives and the gender relations both in society and in the security forces. This is even more impressive considering that many of those who committed atrocities during the civil war are still in positions of power and structures of marginalisation persist. As a result, different narratives of the war and the period afterwards coexist in different parts of the country, contributing to a lack of a common understanding of the conflict and its effects on the people’s lives. A final very unique feature of this field visit was the fact that we just managed to return to Europe before the last flights were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, we are very happy to be back, but also cherish the many insights we acquired during our time in Uganda increasing our curiosity for more research in the future.