“An automatic Bible in the brain”: Trauma and prayer among Acholi Pentecostals in northern Uganda

Abstract

This article examines the role of prayers for traumatized survivors of war within a Pentecostal-charismatic community in post-conflict northern Uganda. It argues that becoming part of a church group and learning certain regimes of prayer can work toward symptom relief and recovery for people suffering from traumatic experiences. The study builds on 13 months of ethnographic fieldwork in rural northern Uganda, with extensive participant observation of religious practices and interviews with rural church congregants. The article attempts to show, through a single case narrative, how individual prayer practices are trained and learned and to identify features of prayer that may alter the individual experience of distress. Analytically, the article builds on Tanya Luhrmann’s scholarship on prayer and applies this conceptual framework to a post-conflict context. The study expands on Luhrmann’s concepts of prayer as an emotional technology in order to understand how psychiatric symptoms are managed within a Pentecostal-charismatic community. The article further argues that a conceptual focus on training of skills can contribute to debates on the universal versus particular characteristics of psychiatric expression and concepts of mind. This argument contributes to current debates on non-clinical ways of managing traumatic experiences and to debates about models of mind in different cultural settings.

‘All in good faith?’ An ethno-historical analysis of local faith actors’ involvement in the delivery of mental health interventions in northern Uganda

“…At the individual level, it would be possible to find examples of patients who experienced relief from these sorts of interventions, although for many this required several sessions. It is possible to draw equivalent conclusions as other medical anthropologists who have found prayer and religious healing to be a cathartic process for relieving trauma (Frank & Frank, 1993;Luhrmann, 2012;Williams, 2021). One could, too, draw parallels between the therapeutic methods of psychiatrists, who take family histories to reveal genetic predispositions to forms of mental illness.…”

“…Significantly, it is striking how the positive visions of faith-based healing (e.g., Ager et al, 2018; Harsch et al, 2021; Williams, 2021) stand in tension with ethnographic work that has highlighted the challenges of rebuilding communities after crisis. Prospects of rebuilding lives are deeply gendered – although women may be empowered in church services, once those services have ended – they may well face difficulties accessing recognition within normative clan-based structures.…”

“…Perhaps intentionally writing out the impacts of humanitarian presence, anthropological studies have tended to focus on the hybrid tapestry of local actors (elders, diviners and faith actors) who have attended to trauma through sociocultural processes to assuage distress. Owing in part to the metaphysical aspects of the war in Acholiland, including the LRA's intentional strategy of forcing recruits to conduct violent, spiritually polluting acts, anthropological research has often focused on the management of hauntings known traditionally in Acholi as cen, a form of spiritual disturbance often understood to bring madness (apoya) (Meinert & Whyte, 2017;Victor & Porter, 2017;Williams, 2021).…”

Psychosocial health in adolescent unmarried motherhood in rural Uganda: Implications for community-based collaborative mental health education, and empowerment strategies in the prevention of depression and suicide

“…Our Basoga colleagues suggest 'overthinking' can be translated as "Enyiike" or "Enaku empitirvu" which is close to pain after suffering loss of something, or grief. Williams (2021) suggests that overthinking among post-war Northern Ugandans, within a constellation of dissociative symptoms, could be indicative of post-traumatic stress disorder, but the Baganda (Southern Ugandans) described "worrisome thoughts" associated with depression for Okello and Ekblad (2006). They also identified "thinking too much" or "too many thoughts" to be perceived as causative of depression and social withdrawal.…”