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****************************************************** * http://www.anthropologymatters.com * * A postgraduate project comprising online journal, * * online discussions, teaching and research resources * * and international contacts directory. * ****************************************************** Dear Anthropology-Matters Subscribers, I hope the following is of interes to you: Living with Bad Surroundings War, History, and Everyday Moments in Northern Uganda Sverker Finnstrom, Stockholm University "Riveting. Powerful. Evocative. Anthropology at its best. Sverker Finnström is a gifted researcher and writer: in his hands the Acoli become a lens for understanding very twenty-first-century forms of violence and survival. This is a book about one of the more destructive and bitter wars on the African continent and its global connections. But it is also a book about hope, about facing and overcoming crises-of every culture being all cultures in the opus of experience, of mango trees surviving the tides of war and global ignorance. About sorrow and laughter and moments of coevalness in northern Uganda and beyond." Carolyn Nordstrom, author of Global Outlaws: Crime, Money, and Power in the Contemporary World "Living with Bad Surroundings is a lucid, compelling, in-depth, and detailed exploration of the vexed position of youth in poverty-stricken Africa; a painstaking and authoritative account of one of the most refractory and long-running wars on that continent; and a demonstration of how imperative it is to complement historical and political-economic explanations of Africa's conflicts with ethnographic perspectives that encompass local symbolic reality, local readings of history and tradition, local expectations and desires, and local understandings of power, morality, and reconciliation."-Michael Jackson, author of In Sierra Leone Since 1986, the Acholi people of northern Uganda have lived in the crossfire of a violent civil war, with the Lord's Resistance Army and other groups fighting the Ugandan government. Acholi have been murdered, maimed, and forced into displacement. Thousands of children have been abducted and forced into fighting. Many observers have perceived Acholiland and northern Uganda to be an exception in contemporary Uganda, which has been celebrated by the international community for its increased political stability and particularly for its fight against AIDS. In this narrative, the Acholi are portrayed as war-prone, whether because of religious fanaticism or intractable ethnic hatreds. In Living with Bad Surroundings, Sverker Finnström rejects these characterizations, and he challenges other simplistic explanations for the violence in northern Uganda. Foregrounding the narratives of individual Acholi, Finnström enables those most affected by the ongoing "dirty war" to explain how they participate in, comprehend, survive, and even resist it. Finnström draws on fieldwork conducted in northern Uganda between 1997 and 2006 to describe how the Acholi-especially the younger generation, those born into the era of civil strife-understand and attempt to control their moral universe and material circumstances. Structuring his argument around indigenous metaphors and images, notably the Acholi concepts of good and bad surroundings, he vividly renders struggles in war and the related ills of impoverishment, sickness, and marginalization. In this rich ethnography, Finnström provides a clear-eyed assessment of the historical, cultural, and political underpinnings of the civil war while maintaining his focus on Acholi efforts to achieve "good surroundings," viable futures for themselves and their families. Duke University Press May 2008 304pp 8 illus £12.99 PB 978-0-8223-4191-8 SPECIAL DISCOUNTED PRICE OF £9.50 to Anthropology-Matters Subscribers Postage and Packing £2.75 To order a copy please contact Marston on 44(0)1235 465500 or email [log in to unmask] or visit our website www.combinedacademic.co.uk (PLEASE QUOTE REF NUMBER: AM30608LBS for discount) Julia Monk Marketing Manager Combined Academic Publishers Cantles Forewood Lane Crowhurst East Sussex TN33 9AB Tel/Fax: 44 (0)1424 830071 Email: [log in to unmask] ************************************************************* * Anthropology-Matters Mailing List * * To join this list or to look at the archived previous * * messages visit: * * http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/Anthropology-Matters.HTML * * If you have ALREADY subscribed: to send a message to all * * those currently subscribed to the list,just send mail to: * * [log in to unmask] * * * * Enjoyed the mailing list? Why not join the new * * CONTACTS SECTION @ www.anthropologymatters.com * * an international directory of anthropology researchers * ***************************************************************