Disarmament: The End or Fulfillment of Cattle Raiding, 2010
The Uganda government claims that the now decade-long disarmament campaign is achieving pacifi ca... more The Uganda government claims that the now decade-long disarmament campaign is achieving pacifi cation and the end of cattle raiding. Here, such claims are tested using data collected over a ten-month period between 2007 and 2008. These data show that the army is unable to prevent raiding or to recover and return more than a token number of raided livestock. The disastrous consequences of unbalanced disarmament are also considered, using material from in-depth interviews within one Karimojong territorial section involved, the Bokora. Following unbalanced disarmament, this section has lost to raids almost all its livestock and remains under constant threat, so that even the prospect of long-term restocking through breeding seems uncertain. As seasonal rains continue to fail to produce a harvest, large numbers of Bokora have dispersed to eke out low-status livelihoods elsewhere in Uganda, or they are rendered dependent and immobile on an inadequately funded World Food Programme. Forced to disarm and then left unprotected, the Bokora are already losing the whole framework of their culture, and they risk losing their territory too.
... 4. Breaking the Cycle of Violence. ↵5. K. Mkutu, Pastoral Conflict, Governance and Small Arms... more ... 4. Breaking the Cycle of Violence. ↵5. K. Mkutu, Pastoral Conflict, Governance and Small Arms in the North Rift, North East Africa (PhD thesis, University of Bradford, 2005). ... Impact factor: 1.490 5-Yr impact factor: 1.763. Joint Editors. Rita Abrahamsen. Sara Rich Dorman. ...
Transformation: An International Journal of Holistic Mission Studies, 2001
Ever since the Latins named Africa from their Mediterranean perspective, liminal to the continent... more Ever since the Latins named Africa from their Mediterranean perspective, liminal to the continent if central to their world, there has been a peculiar relationship between the two continents, and massive misunderstandings. Despite and due to commerce that spawned the industrial revolution for the production of ‘trade goods’ to exchange for the gold, ivory, and slaves of Africa, the British in particular chose to define themselves in terms of what they perceived Africa not to be. Civilization was seen in terms of stone architecture, cathedrals, wage labour, literature, science, technology, and sea-going trade, and Africa did not have any for Europeans to speak of. Yet ‘Africa’, itself the concept of a people who were able to sail round the continent without penetrating it, not those who lived in its vast and varied interior, was not allowed the freedom to define itself. Thus, the Christian Congolese writer, V.Y. Mudimbe emphasizes the ‘Invention of Africa’. The colonization of Africa...
If there is to be a "great Karamoja debate", then it is necessary to keep in focus the leading is... more If there is to be a "great Karamoja debate", then it is necessary to keep in focus the leading issues, with the constraints of historiographical and methodological concerns. Since 1990 publications on the Karamojong1 have in general taken the line expressed in Mirzeler and Young's abstract: "The transformation of local modes of conflict by large-scale infusion of the AK-47 has had far-reaching effects ...".2 Against this trend I cite the French critic, Alphonse Karr (1808-1890), "Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose". My perversity is sustained by studying the Karamojong over 23V? years, living there 1984-86, and returning for fieldwork across
Christian mission could not have hoped to have more influence on schools in Africa than that whic... more Christian mission could not have hoped to have more influence on schools in Africa than that which was open to it before the end of empire. To a great extent, the missionary societies had earned their dominant position, having long invested in Western education, while ...
Ben Knighton Christian Enculturation in the Two-Thirds World Where does agency lie in mission? Is... more Ben Knighton Christian Enculturation in the Two-Thirds World Where does agency lie in mission? Is it in the sending north or the receiving south? This paper will take a lead from recent African Studies that the power of the north, reinforced by globalization, does not ...
Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute, 2016
JohnWeatherby went to Uganda as an art teacher, grew interested in the people he taught, and earn... more JohnWeatherby went to Uganda as an art teacher, grew interested in the people he taught, and earned an MA at Makerere University for an ethnographic thesis on the Sebei on Mount Elgon in 1967, when that was quite an achievement. Indeed, the history department there, containing J. B. Webster, R. S. Herring and J. E. Lamphear, produced irreplaceable research on north-east Uganda. Now Weatherby’s daughter, Joanna, has had the University of Salamanca publish her father’s ethnographic monograph on the So/Soo/Sor, a Kuliak people living on Mount Moroto, above the high school where her father was posted to teach art before President Amin effectively ended all research in Uganda. This offering from 1974 is therefore a valuable record of the past twice over, since the oral memory of most of his contributors went back four generations to the first half of the nineteenth century, and one to 1779, not only in Sor clans on Moroto but also on Mount Kadam. I have been able to check the prophecy of...
Transformation: An International Journal of Holistic Mission Studies, 2015
The year 2013 has proved to have been a turning-point for the nation of Kenya in a number of ways... more The year 2013 has proved to have been a turning-point for the nation of Kenya in a number of ways. It was a year when Kenya chose peace rather than democracy, but insecurity rather than accountability, cooperation with East rather than West, and nationalism above free speech. The article focusses on two moments framed by the elections: the armed attack on the Westgate shopping mall, and the funeral of the previous Archbishop. The newly elected government utilized these events to frustrate the International Criminal Court. It draws from eye-witness presence in addition to an analysis of print and other media, and it finds that peace and nation-building were bought at the price of insecurity and the aspirations that eventually inaugurated a new constitution. The churches were this time minor players, and with the death of David Gitari were shown almost bereft of the courageous spirit that had been the voice of disempowered Kenyans.
Transformation: An International Journal of Holistic Mission Studies, 1999
Transformation: An International Journal of Holistic Mission Studies Ben Knighton mission : The e... more Transformation: An International Journal of Holistic Mission Studies Ben Knighton mission : The experience of Christian enculturation in Karamoja, Uganda The meaning of God in an African Traditional Religion and the meaninglessness of well-meaning
Transformation: An International Journal of Holistic Mission Studies, 2003
Development Studies began in the 1960s from a clear locus in the social sciences with an opti-mis... more Development Studies began in the 1960s from a clear locus in the social sciences with an opti-mistic agenda that could contribute to the socio-economic growth of Less Developed Countries. Crossing disciplines meant it could not avoid the paradigm shifts that swept ...
Disarmament: The End or Fulfillment of Cattle Raiding, 2010
The Uganda government claims that the now decade-long disarmament campaign is achieving pacifi ca... more The Uganda government claims that the now decade-long disarmament campaign is achieving pacifi cation and the end of cattle raiding. Here, such claims are tested using data collected over a ten-month period between 2007 and 2008. These data show that the army is unable to prevent raiding or to recover and return more than a token number of raided livestock. The disastrous consequences of unbalanced disarmament are also considered, using material from in-depth interviews within one Karimojong territorial section involved, the Bokora. Following unbalanced disarmament, this section has lost to raids almost all its livestock and remains under constant threat, so that even the prospect of long-term restocking through breeding seems uncertain. As seasonal rains continue to fail to produce a harvest, large numbers of Bokora have dispersed to eke out low-status livelihoods elsewhere in Uganda, or they are rendered dependent and immobile on an inadequately funded World Food Programme. Forced to disarm and then left unprotected, the Bokora are already losing the whole framework of their culture, and they risk losing their territory too.
... 4. Breaking the Cycle of Violence. ↵5. K. Mkutu, Pastoral Conflict, Governance and Small Arms... more ... 4. Breaking the Cycle of Violence. ↵5. K. Mkutu, Pastoral Conflict, Governance and Small Arms in the North Rift, North East Africa (PhD thesis, University of Bradford, 2005). ... Impact factor: 1.490 5-Yr impact factor: 1.763. Joint Editors. Rita Abrahamsen. Sara Rich Dorman. ...
Transformation: An International Journal of Holistic Mission Studies, 2001
Ever since the Latins named Africa from their Mediterranean perspective, liminal to the continent... more Ever since the Latins named Africa from their Mediterranean perspective, liminal to the continent if central to their world, there has been a peculiar relationship between the two continents, and massive misunderstandings. Despite and due to commerce that spawned the industrial revolution for the production of ‘trade goods’ to exchange for the gold, ivory, and slaves of Africa, the British in particular chose to define themselves in terms of what they perceived Africa not to be. Civilization was seen in terms of stone architecture, cathedrals, wage labour, literature, science, technology, and sea-going trade, and Africa did not have any for Europeans to speak of. Yet ‘Africa’, itself the concept of a people who were able to sail round the continent without penetrating it, not those who lived in its vast and varied interior, was not allowed the freedom to define itself. Thus, the Christian Congolese writer, V.Y. Mudimbe emphasizes the ‘Invention of Africa’. The colonization of Africa...
If there is to be a "great Karamoja debate", then it is necessary to keep in focus the leading is... more If there is to be a "great Karamoja debate", then it is necessary to keep in focus the leading issues, with the constraints of historiographical and methodological concerns. Since 1990 publications on the Karamojong1 have in general taken the line expressed in Mirzeler and Young's abstract: "The transformation of local modes of conflict by large-scale infusion of the AK-47 has had far-reaching effects ...".2 Against this trend I cite the French critic, Alphonse Karr (1808-1890), "Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose". My perversity is sustained by studying the Karamojong over 23V? years, living there 1984-86, and returning for fieldwork across
Christian mission could not have hoped to have more influence on schools in Africa than that whic... more Christian mission could not have hoped to have more influence on schools in Africa than that which was open to it before the end of empire. To a great extent, the missionary societies had earned their dominant position, having long invested in Western education, while ...
Ben Knighton Christian Enculturation in the Two-Thirds World Where does agency lie in mission? Is... more Ben Knighton Christian Enculturation in the Two-Thirds World Where does agency lie in mission? Is it in the sending north or the receiving south? This paper will take a lead from recent African Studies that the power of the north, reinforced by globalization, does not ...
Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute, 2016
JohnWeatherby went to Uganda as an art teacher, grew interested in the people he taught, and earn... more JohnWeatherby went to Uganda as an art teacher, grew interested in the people he taught, and earned an MA at Makerere University for an ethnographic thesis on the Sebei on Mount Elgon in 1967, when that was quite an achievement. Indeed, the history department there, containing J. B. Webster, R. S. Herring and J. E. Lamphear, produced irreplaceable research on north-east Uganda. Now Weatherby’s daughter, Joanna, has had the University of Salamanca publish her father’s ethnographic monograph on the So/Soo/Sor, a Kuliak people living on Mount Moroto, above the high school where her father was posted to teach art before President Amin effectively ended all research in Uganda. This offering from 1974 is therefore a valuable record of the past twice over, since the oral memory of most of his contributors went back four generations to the first half of the nineteenth century, and one to 1779, not only in Sor clans on Moroto but also on Mount Kadam. I have been able to check the prophecy of...
Transformation: An International Journal of Holistic Mission Studies, 2015
The year 2013 has proved to have been a turning-point for the nation of Kenya in a number of ways... more The year 2013 has proved to have been a turning-point for the nation of Kenya in a number of ways. It was a year when Kenya chose peace rather than democracy, but insecurity rather than accountability, cooperation with East rather than West, and nationalism above free speech. The article focusses on two moments framed by the elections: the armed attack on the Westgate shopping mall, and the funeral of the previous Archbishop. The newly elected government utilized these events to frustrate the International Criminal Court. It draws from eye-witness presence in addition to an analysis of print and other media, and it finds that peace and nation-building were bought at the price of insecurity and the aspirations that eventually inaugurated a new constitution. The churches were this time minor players, and with the death of David Gitari were shown almost bereft of the courageous spirit that had been the voice of disempowered Kenyans.
Transformation: An International Journal of Holistic Mission Studies, 1999
Transformation: An International Journal of Holistic Mission Studies Ben Knighton mission : The e... more Transformation: An International Journal of Holistic Mission Studies Ben Knighton mission : The experience of Christian enculturation in Karamoja, Uganda The meaning of God in an African Traditional Religion and the meaninglessness of well-meaning
Transformation: An International Journal of Holistic Mission Studies, 2003
Development Studies began in the 1960s from a clear locus in the social sciences with an opti-mis... more Development Studies began in the 1960s from a clear locus in the social sciences with an opti-mistic agenda that could contribute to the socio-economic growth of Less Developed Countries. Crossing disciplines meant it could not avoid the paradigm shifts that swept ...
pp. 107-28 Kenyatta Oathing ISBN 978-3-8258-9805-2
This book provides an overview of the troubled... more pp. 107-28 Kenyatta Oathing ISBN 978-3-8258-9805-2 This book provides an overview of the troubled process of nation- building in post-colonial Kenya. Despite distinctive features of the Moi and Kenyatta regimes, late colonial period continuity has been the dominant theme. Different aspects of this continuity are highlighted: the strength of the provincial administration, the central role of ethnicity in shaping political competition, the understanding of the state as a resource, and the ultimately incompatible beliefs held by different communities regarding how power can be legitimately exercised.
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Papers by Ben Knighton
This book provides an overview of the troubled process of nation- building in post-colonial Kenya. Despite distinctive features of the Moi and Kenyatta regimes, late colonial period continuity has been the dominant theme. Different aspects of this continuity are highlighted: the strength of the provincial administration, the central role of ethnicity in shaping political competition, the understanding of the state as a resource, and the ultimately incompatible beliefs held by different communities regarding how power can be legitimately exercised.