Abstract
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AbstractMemory studies scholar Cathy Caruth postulates that “history is precisely the way we are implicated in one another's trauma” (24). Given the violent and traumatic history of post-independence Uganda, especially the bloody, insane and protracted Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency in northern Uganda and its aftermath, Caruth's statement summarizes our collective cultural trauma and the challenges of internal representation of trauma. Recent documentaries in Uganda deal with the mayhem of Joseph Kony's LRA. These are George Otis Junior's An Unconventional War (2006), Sean Fine and Andrea Nix's War Dance (2007), Jason Russell's Invisible Children Rough Cut (2006) and Kony 2012 (2012). These documentaries offer a broad range of approaches to testifying about the impact of the war on individuals, families and entire communities. Although these are films by foreign directors, they offer perspectives on the trauma of children and communities in northern Uganda that the victims would take for granted ...