Difficult Decisions: Karimojong Healing in Conflict

Abstract

This dissertation examines Karimojong ethnomedicine, focusing on maternal therapeutic decision-making and the healing work of indigenous practitioners. Political and environmental instability, coupled with inequality and an institutional emphasis on biomedicine, has resulted in long-term suffering among the Karimojong of northeast Uganda. Over a period of 10 months of ethnographic fieldwork, I heard, witnessed, and experienced Karimojong communities "making do" in the face of abject structural violence. The social, political, and economic marginalization of Karamoja has shaped the distribution of healthcare resources and local experiences of health and illness. The Karimojong are medically pluralistic and rely on both biomedicine and indigenous medicine. For child illnesses, Karimojong mothers chose healthcare methods pragmatically and utilized multiple strategies including herbal remedies, consultations with healers, pharmaceuticals, and frequenting biomedical clinics. Informants described the reasons biomedicine could not wholly replace their indigenous healing systems and the constraints placed on therapeutic decision-making.