Seers

‘Seers’ possess the capacity to foresee and manipulate the future. As such, they perform an important role within pastoral communities as interlocutors with the divine. They advise elders in decision-making on security, raiding and war making, peacemaking, and migratory movement of people and livestock. In these roles, engagement with seers - or at least recognition of their importance - is critical in any effort to build greater regional peace and stability in the Karamoja Cluster region. However, many government officials and NGOs operating there are quick to dismiss them as charlatans, or whatever it may be, and marginalise these influential people, limiting the amount of knowledge seers might share in regional peace and stability initiatives. I was once told by a field coordinator of an international NGO that Google will render seers obsolete. He, and many others, fail to understand something rather simple: people will do as seers advise, whether right or wrong, whether it's predicting enemy raids or diagnosing ailments. Like a cow that no longer gives milk, a seer will be left alone if he/she fails to deliver results and maintain trust.

Over a period of two years, my research in the Karamoja region included a photo-documentary component to capture and try to better understand how seers do their 'seeing' in effort to shed light on the complex nature of their relationships with other tribal groups, both friend and foe. To complement the findings of the written work, I incorporated a photography component to illustrate the daily activities of seers and other members of their communities to draw attention to the environmental and economic challenges that many face today. It is these environmental and economic challenges that spur some of the armed conflict in the region at present.

Following the initial phase of the research, I constructed a mobile exhibit and returned to the areas from where the photographs were taken to facilitate community dialogue about the work's findings and stimulate discussion about their own perspectives on peace, security and other challenges. Images of those exhibits are found within this site.
For nearly all of the people who experienced the exhibits, it was there first time seeing such a thing, photographs of themselves. For many, it was the first time to look into the eyes of their perceived enemies, for as long as they chose to, and see people from groups the seldom, if ever, actually interact with, despite living only mere kilometers away.