Memory, suffering, survival tactics, and healing among Jopadhola women in post-war Uganda

This ethnographic case study addresses the question of how women in Jopadhola patriarchal society in Eastern Uganda remember three decades of civil war and violence and survived its aftermath. When the war ended, little changed for these women, who are still exposed to a continuum of gender-based violence and continue to use the same tactics that, during the war, enabled them to somehow live with their suffering. The Mifumi Project, an indigenous NGO founded by one of the women whose life history was recorded for this article, has started to assist Jopadhola women to improve the quality of their present-day lives. By rebuilding their human and social capital, this NGO is also creating the space for women to heal their war memories.