“A Reason Not to Belong”: Political Decentralization, Intercommunal Relations, and Changing Identities in Northeastern Uganda

Abstract Abim district, located in Uganda’s Karamoja region, is one of the scores new administrative units created under country’s decentralization policy. The establishment district 2006, following decades conflict northern Uganda, was accompanied by changes ethnic identity within local communities Ethur farmers. Based on oral history fieldwork Abim, Meyerson documents these sociopolitical identification among Ethur. In doing so, he demonstrates how political has become a venue for combination international discourses indigenous rights, national notions citizenship, and grassroots histories intercommunal relations.