Displacement causes massive social and relational disruptions to daily life with far-reaching consequences in a society where intimate relationships, marriage, kinship and belonging are spatial and temporal orderings that interact with politics and governance. In prolonged displacements, the compounding impacts of this disruption become more salient and visible to those most directly affected by the conflict.

For many people who were born in the camps or to parents who had not married in traditional ways due to the circumstances of war, their status in a family lineage is insecure. That means relational belonging and connection to land needs to be negotiated rather than simply claimed. In an agrarian society where so much of life moves around the cycles of growing, the season and preparing the land and food, there can be a loss of identity when ties and access to the land are contested, unstable, under threat or entirely cut.

In Northern Uganda, the ideal is that you should travel far away from your current home to find a wife, and in following patrilocal norms, the couple then settle in the man’s home or community. During the conflict and in the camps, these practices around finding a spouse were not possible.

Marriage involves a process over time and space that includes customary exchanges (e.g., cattle and other gifts and money) from the man’s family to the woman’s that were not possible during the 20 years of conflict. For example, there were no cattle, so the exchanges that needed to take place to marry could not happen. This does not mean that people didn’t start living together, have sex or have children together. Rather it means that no new home was established, as these rituals of exchange could not happen, and the system that people hold very dear was eroded.

While formal or traditional marriages did not take place, ideas about marriage or what makes a home have begun to adapt in response to the context. The research reveals both evolving norms and contestations around these changes. For example, in the absence or reduction in exchanges taking place, relationships are less stable and can be more volatile. At the same time, other things, like having a child together, constructing a house or farming together have become important ways to express an intention to live life together.

Despite the vast and sustained disruptions to social relations in Northern Uganda, certain hierarchical social norms remained resilient throughout the conflict. For example, gerontocracy (leadership and power held by the elders) and a patriarchal order (where preference is given to the men) have remained persistent and pervasive. This research assumed that conflict would have called these social norms into question in a much more profound way, but in reality, at least the ideal of them remains strong.

For example, the practice of burying umbilical cords of children to affirm the connection between the people and the land continued during the war largely by women in the communities. Despite the disruptions, this practice remained an important part of identity and continues to be practiced.

There is an imagined idea of Acholi life that is rooted in experience and memory, but the continued reverberations of the conflict make this something out of reach for most people. There is a noted discrepancy between what they imagine their lives should be like, and what they are. As a result, there is a process of mourning happening. Even if some of what has been lost is patriarchal or violent, there still needs to be a space for the loss and grief surrounding that in order for there to be a reimagining of what life could look like in the aftermath of war and the experience of new freedoms.

Radio enables a discussion around things that are not the norm. For example, discussing sexual experiences and the silences around different sexual experiences. Radio also allows for greater public engagement in conversations that would not typically be discussed publicly. For example, conversations about how the conflict or COVID-19 changed people’s love lives, or if cultural chiefs should be regulating how much ‘brideprice’ or other customary exchanges to formalize relationships should be. Using radio opened different dynamics of what people think about different topics.

The way terms and concepts are used and interpreted – for example, ‘marriage’, ‘wife’, ‘rape’, and ‘justice’ – do not travel or translate in a simple way. They need to be closely examined in conflict-affected context like North Uganda. We need to think about how social concepts are structuring social life and acknowledge that these categories and concepts are contested and incomplete, and that contextual factors are required to understand their impacts.

Discourses in these spaces in the aftermath of conflict are key. An expansion of efforts to discuss social relations and intimate partnerships openly and critically is needed.

In the context of rural areas impacted by war, radio can be an effective and influential way of reaching people and discussing important communal issues. Facilitated conversations on the radio can also help build bridges across divides by bringing the rural and the urban, educated and uneducated, and men and women together to discuss key issues that affect them all. Radio is also useful because it can help amplify the voices of marginalised people who might not necessarily be the ones speaking up at community meetings or focus groups.