Performing Trauma in Central Africa , livre ebook

PERFORMING TRAUMA IN CENTRAL AFRICA
A FRICAN E XPRESSIVE C ULTURES
Patrick McNaughton, editor
Associate editors
Catherine M. Cole
Barbara G. Hoffman
Eileen Julien
Kassim Kon
D. A. Masolo
Elisha Renne
Z. S. Strother
PERFORMING TRAUMA IN CENTRAL AFRICA
Shadows of Empire
Laura Edmondson
I NDIANA U NIVERSITY P RESS
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2018 by Laura Edmondson
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Edmondson, Laura, 1970- author.
Title: Performing trauma in Central Africa : shadows of empire / Laura Edmondson.
Description: Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 2018. | Series: African expressive cultures | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017050084 (print) | LCCN 2017050627 (ebook) | ISBN 9780253032461 (Ebook) | ISBN 9780253032454 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780253032478 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: War and theater-Great Lakes Region (Africa) | Performing Arts-Social aspects-Great Lakes Region (Africa) | Atrocities-Social Aspects-Great Lakes Region (Africa)
Classification: LCC PN2041.W37 (ebook) | LCC PN2041.W37 E36 2018 (print) | DDC 306.4840967-dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017050084
1 2 3 4 5 23 22 21 20 19 18
T O J OHARI AND A MINA
C ONTENTS
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1 Competitive Memory in the Great Lakes: Touring Genocide
2 Marketing Trauma and the Theatre of War in Northern Uganda
3 Trauma, Inc. in Postgenocide Rwanda
4 Repetition, Rupture, and Ruined : Narratives from the Congo
5 Gifted by Trauma: The Branding of Postconflict Northern Uganda
6 Confessions of a Failed Theatre Activist
Afterword: Faustin Linyekula and the Labors of Hope
References
Index
About the Author
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
T O WRITE THESE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS IS to fail. I cannot possibly thank all the countless people who have encouraged and assisted me in the writing of this book, given that it has been in the making for over a decade and spans research in Uganda, Rwanda, the United Kingdom, and the United States. What makes this inability harder to bear is that these encounters are at the core of why I do this research; the making of meaning within and among artistic and academic communities is one of life s gifts. I have turned to the work of J. Halberstam for alternative understandings of failure as a source of political creativity and challenge only to realize that in this case, theory would serve as a shield for my shortcomings. Here the failure of omission speaks of erasure rather than transgression. And so I open with an apology and the hope that I might later remember and restore.
The hospitality I received in Uganda makes this task especially daunting. I acknowledge my colleagues and students at the Department of Literature in Makerere University, whose work serves as a keen reminder of why the humanities in African studies matter. I owe special thanks to the tireless Susan Kiguli for her efforts to help me feel welcome and settled. Nelson Abiti, Deborah Asiimwe GKashugi, Sunday Komakech, Laurence Ocen, and Okweny George Ongom have been instrumental in shaping my thinking about the performance of trauma; I am especially grateful to Laurence and Nelson for their invaluable feedback on chapter 5 . Okello Kelo Sam has been a presence in my research from the beginning; his creative and intellectual energy infuses this project. A heartfelt apwoyo matek for everything he has done for me and for my family. Thanks to the Ambersoli International School community for providing a place for Johari and Amina to thrive, and my gratitude to the families who welcomed them into their homes. To Anneke Fermont and Nicci Martin, I look forward to the day when we might return at least some of the extraordinary generosity that you have shown us. Thanks to Ismene Zarifis (and Shaka, of course) for being fantastic neighbors and to Janet and Ed Black for their support. My gratitude to the staff at the US embassy, particularly Dorothy Ngalombi, for facilitating the logistics of our stay. Webale nyo .
Several Rwandans are key members of the transnational village that informs this book. Our visits to Kigali were consistently rewarding thanks to the unfailing generosity of Hope Azeda; Hope, you and your family are a bright spot in our lives. I am only sorry that I was not able to give your artistic work the attention it fully deserves, but I hope to rectify this in the next book. The same to Odile Kiki Gatese, whose Book of Life project serves as a beacon for Great Lakes performance; thanks for your willingness and openness to discuss and share your work and ideas. Murakoze to Simon Rwema and Angel Uwamahoro for their invaluable assistance during a fast and furious research visit in 2015, to Jean-Pierre Karegeye and the hard-working Interdisciplinary Genocide Studies Centre staff for facilitating a transformative glimpse into postgenocide Rwanda through the More Life initiative in which I participated in 2007 and 2011, and, of course, to Erik Ehn for living the praxis of radical hospitality.
Shifting briefly to the United Kingdom, thanks to Thea Armfield for showing Johari and Amina the sights of Oxford while I buried myself in slides at the Bodleian Library. The fabulous librarians at Oxford, Anti-Slavery International, and Lambeth Palace were unfailingly patient and cheerful, and my understanding of the iconography of the Congo Free State benefited greatly from their help.
Generous financial support was provided by the Fulbright Program, the Leslie Center for the Humanities at Dartmouth College, the Arts and Humanities Program Enhancement Program at Florida State University, and the Joan Sloane Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College. Thanks also to the Dickey Center for sponsoring my manuscript review, and to Francine A ness, Catherine Cole, Nelson Kasfir, Eng-Beng Lim, Irma Mayorga, Catharine Newbury, Naaborko Sackeyfio, and Chris Wohlforth for their incisive yet encouraging feedback. A heartfelt thanks to David Newbury for his razor-sharp attention to chapter 1 , although the usual caveat that any mistakes are my own cannot be emphasized enough in this instance. Thanks also to my dean, Barbara Will, for financial support regarding publication costs, as well as her warm encouragement as I made the transition to department chair. I wish to acknowledge the American Society for Theatre Research, which not only provided funding through the Targeted Areas Research Support Grant and the Brooks McNamara Publishing Subvention Grant but also a sense of intellectual community; I am thinking particularly of the participants in the Performance Studies in/from the Global South sessions, who remind me that transnationalism is not only a methodology but also an ethical way of seeing the world. I have also benefited from the thoughtful feedback and encouragement of John Fletcher, Loren Kruger, Sonja Kuftinec, Ana Puga, and Analola Santana; special thanks to Patrick Anderson and Ananda Breed for pushing me to greater clarity and depth. My sincere gratitude to Dee Mortensen and Paige Rasmussen at Indiana University Press; their gentle guidance and ready feedback as I slogged my way through various versions of the manuscript were instrumental to its completion. Charles Eberline s meticulous copyediting helped to bring the writing process to a satisfying finish; thanks also to Martin Lubikowski for contributing such an elegant and informative map.
Earlier versions of chapter 2 and chapter 6 have been previously published. Marketing Trauma and the Theatre of War in Northern Uganda appeared in Theatre Journal 57 (3): 2005, 451-474; Confessions of a Failed Theatre Activist was included in Avant-Garde Performance and Material Exchange: Vectors of the Radical , edited by Mike Sell, 41-59 (Houndmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).
Here in New Hampshire, I am blessed with the opportunity to work in a top-notch theatre department with faculty and staff who are gifted, dedicated, and wonderfully supportive; I can t imagine a better place to teach. Beyond the department, I benefit from a cohort of scholars across the humanities and social sciences whom I am proud to consider colleagues; a special mention to those in African and African-American Studies for providing a sense of intellectual community. To my students over the years who have taken Human Rights and Performance, and to all my theatre students who resist the pressures of convention to do what you love: you serve as an essential reminder of the creative power of the performing arts-more so than ever as I write this, in the aftermath of the 2016 election. Thanks to Nana Adjeiwaa-Manu and Haley Gordon for checking and standardizing an endless number of citations and footnotes. You were ideal research assistants thanks to your eagle eye for detail, and I appreciated y