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Project

Photographs form inside the Lord's Resitance Army.

The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) is a rebel group, notorious for its use of extreme violence and its large-scale abductions of children, who were used as child soldiers or forced 'wives'. The LRA is led by the infamous Joseph Kony and became active in northern Uganda during the second half of the 1980s. Rebel Lives is built on an archive of photographs taken by LRA commanders themselves between 1994 and 2003.The photographs show life within the group and depict the rebels as they want to be seen, both among themselves and by the outside world. The images bear witness to how the abductees tried to live within extremely violent circumstances, but also portray a surprising normality. Rebel Lives tells the story of a conflict where the line between victim and perpetrator is blurred, where people struggle to survive, and where children in particular bear the brunt of this tension.Kristof Titeca, Professor in Development Studies at the University of Antwerp and expert on the LRA, collected this material, and used it to trace the photographed (former) rebels and understand the photographs – a process which took several years. Together with Congolese photographer Georges Senga, he travelled back to photograph the former rebels in their current context.
Date:16 Mar 2020 →  31 Dec 2020
Keywords:PHOTOGRAPHIC HERITAGE, CONFLICT ANALYSIS, PHOTOGRAPHY, PHOTOGRAPHIC RESEARCH
Disciplines:Area studies, Political and legal anthropology, Anthropology not elsewhere classified, Other social sciences not elsewhere classified, Photography
Project type:Service project