Shifting Perspectives on “Pastoral” Violence: The Persistence of the “Karamoja Problem” in Uganda

Abstract

This thesis examines the historical and political construction of the “Karamoja Problem,” a category that has long shaped scholarship and state policy in Uganda. Existing analyses often treat pastoral mobility, cattle raids, and violence as inherent features of Karamoja society, obscuring the historical processes through which these phenomena emerged. Addressing this gap, the thesis argues that the “Karamoja Problem” is a political invention of colonial and postcolonial governance, and that violence in Karamoja functions as a political language rooted in disrupted pastoral institutions, contested sovereignty, and the state’s long history of criminalization and militarized control. Adopting a qualitative and decolonial approach, the research treats archives, oral histories, and ethnography as situated texts rather than neutral sources. It centers Karamoja’s knowledge systems and political institutions, engaging concepts such as Arem, Asapan, Alomar, and Akiwor. The study reconstructs precolonial distributions of power across elders, women’s institutions, and warrior formations, examining how these structures regulated social order, including the practice of Arem. It demonstrates how colonial and postcolonial interventions—such as the suppression of cultural practices, destabilization of the governance structures, and criminalization of raids—reshaped authority, social reproduction, and agency, giving rise to new forms of resistance, including women’s political action and the emergence of Alomar as an anti-colonial warrior formation. The thesis makes theoretical, empirical, and policy contributions. It challenges state-centric and criminalizing narratives of violence, situating it within historical disruption, contested authority, and local socio-political orders. Empirically, it foregrounds previously understudied actors and institutions, revealing the complex dynamics of governance, agency, and moral economies. Practically, it informs policy by highlighting the limits of militarized interventions and advocating approaches grounded in Karamoja’s political, cultural, and pastoral realities. By engaging Karamoja’s own categories of thought, the study reconceives mobility, economy, and resistance, challenging narratives of disorder and presenting pastoralism on its own historical and intellectual terms.