Abstract
This chapter explores the role of photographs in burials and in peoples’ relationships with the dead in Acholi, Northern Uganda. It focuses on three avenues of analysis: Firstly, the role of photographs of the dead in the grieving process of children, and how they help them to remember. Secondly, it describes how photographs of the dead are used by elders to create a “collective memory” of Acholi burial rites, and through this cement their own authority in society. Thirdly, it delves into the social lives of such photographs and shows how they can engender deep feelings in those who behold them, and through these emotional responses obtain some power to influence peoples’ social lives
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- 1.
According to the wishes of my informants, I have kept their real names in all cases except for the woman I have chosen to call Mary, as she wished to be anonymous.
- 2.
Most of the interviews in this chapter were conducted with people who spoke Acholi, and in these cases, I used a translator. Only the interview with the woman named Alonyo was in English.
- 3.
It is difficult to obtain precise demographic data on the Ugandan population, but these numbers come from the CIA FactBook (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ug.html, accessed December 12, 2014), based on a 2002 census. I am aware that numbers have probably changed since then, but as of yet, demographic data of Uganda is very hard to find.
- 4.
- 5.
Photography came to East Africa with the colonial explorers, scientists, and engineers building railways in the late 1800s (Behrend 2003; Edwards 2001; Vokes 2008). The technology quickly spread to the African population, however, and it soon became popular to visit photo studios to get portraits taken, for those who had the means (Vokes 2008). Nonetheless, the availability of cameras and camera phones remain scarce for those who live in rural Uganda.
- 6.
Latin. The literal translation is: “Remember (that you have) to die” (Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition, 2001).
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Seebach, S.H. (2017). For the Solace of the Young and the Authority of the Old Death: Photography in Acholi, Northern Uganda. In: Boret, S., Long, S., Kan, S. (eds) Death in the Early Twenty-first Century. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52365-1_6
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