Abstract
Approaching the war generation's lives in post-war Acholiland from numerous angles, Julia Vorhoelter's Youth at the Crossroads takes as its starting point the oft-articulated notion that, due to the experience of war and displacement, Acholi culture is getting lost – or has been lost already. Asking whether this is indeed the case, the book branches out into questions of what Acholi culture is and whether the youth (defined as those born during the war) is preserving, rebuilding, or reforming the culture. The text engages with the tension created by naturally unstable imaginations of tradition and modernity, asking how and to what extent war has obscured the view across the landscape of past and future.
Vorhoelter argues that Acholi youths find themselves at a crossroads, having to choose between tradition and modernity, and, by extension, between Acholi identity and a broadly “Western” identity. The book views the particular challenge faced by those of the war generation as lying within the expectation that they will be able to fulfil contradictory roles: that they can be revivers as well as reformers of traditions. Both tradition and change are in themselves discourses, thus making it difficult for Acholi youth to define what they specifically reject or accept when they refer to Acholi culture. Unpacking the various forces that influence notions of Acholi culture, the book also gives a comprehensive overview of some of the broader debates on the war in northern Uganda, situating the empirical work in the tradition of discourse analysis in general and anthropological research on youth, while also examining both with a critical eye.
The book identifies four types of discourse on culture and change: the more predictable discourses of “retraditionalisation” and “modernisation” as well as an “ambivalent” and a “creative” discourse, which respectively focus on uncertainties as a challenge and as an opportunity. Having the details of these discourses recorded as part of life for northern Uganda's war generation is useful, as is the book's broader contextualisation within research on youth. Grappling with concepts of traditions and imagined traditions, gender relations, connections between generations, and an ambivalent relationship with the virtues and vices of what is broadly perceived as another lifestyle – in this case, Western – is a fresh experience for each generation. The book's greatest contribution is that it reminds us of the importance of research on youth and of recording where the war generation currently places itself within these tensions.
The analytical approach, however, also highlights that a focus on discourse allows for a complex portrayal without delivering on some of the deeper questions. How exactly are contradictions negotiated to shift from ambivalent to creative engagement with the tensions faced? Precisely how does situational context influence how individuals relate to tradition or modernity? Are there particular outside forces – other than the seemingly broad-sweeping presence of Western media – that drive or hinder socio-cultural change?
A major finding is that many layers of discourse emerge when one studies culture through its discourse. While the text at times confronts this sharp insight, it is not fully utilised. The weakness of discourse analysis is its potential to record narratives and encounters at face value; the discourse label, like any analysis, can obscure, as well as illuminate. The discourse analysis here obscures the meta-discourse of conducting research: the path that leads a researcher from observation to interpretation to the presentation of research findings. The book belongs to an unofficial subgenre of research that engages with the researcher's experience of acknowledging the complexity of the research topic, the relationship between the researcher and the researched, and the positioning of one's own work in relation to that of others. Although the discourse analysis of Acholi culture name-checks power and change, the book could have applied a lens of power and change to a meta-analysis of the way researchers work, possibly considering the ambiguity of a discourse analysis deeply situated in research discourse. The space between what is said and done in both Acholi culture and research in a postwar society under scrutiny requires further mapping.
Those who are presented as guides through this maze – the youth – cannot help clarify these many layers. The book's main finding is that the war generation's particular predicament is that they lack a clear role and are caught between being expected both to revive an Acholi culture – that may or may not have existed in the way it is currently being remembered – and to build a bright future. Verhoelter acknowledges this continual process of negotiation but characterises it as an in-between state. However, the examples and observations do not convincingly show that the youths feel they have to choose. Most interlocutors express either verbally or through their actions that they can be both, depending on where they are in life and in what situation they find themselves. It is not the choice that creates tension, since the choice is not in itself a problem. With this, the book sets up an unresolved premise: while Verhoelter chose to examine this case from the perspective of the “war generation” because their generational link to the state of war was expected to situate them in a major historical shift, a generation that knows only a life during wartime does not necessarily experience it as a shift. Developing a perspective of being in a changed situation is a very real reflection of the person who chooses to enter a new environment to conduct research. Being part of a major shift due to war might be more theoretical for the youth examined here. What lingers after the discourse analysis of youth and culture is also the discourse on research in and on northern Uganda.