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CURRICULUM VITAE

OCEN LAURY LAWRENCE

Place of Birth: Lira, Northern Uganda

Nationality: Ugandan

University Education

2017: Doctor of Philosophy (Interdisciplinary PhD in Social Studies), Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR), Makerere University. Dissertation title: “Reading Monuments: the Politics and Poetics of Memory in Postwar Northern Uganda”.

2015: Master of Philosophy, MISR, Makerere University.

2005: Master of Arts (Literature), Makerere University. Dissertation title: Naratology in African Cinema). 1995:  Bachelor of Arts with Education (Hons.), Islamic University in Uganda (IUIU), English Language Studies (minor) &Literature in English (major).

Abilities and competence (in Summary)

Research skills in ethnography, library and archival methodologies; manuscript development skills, academic report writing skills, teaching and oral communication, editing and proof reading, screenplay, theatre and directing skills, group dynamic knowledge, peacemaking an peacebuilding skills, gender inclusive pedagogy skills, community outreach acumen, and ability to work with rural communities.

Academic/Administrative Responsibilities

Acting Head, Department of Professional Studies, Faculty of Education, Lira University.

Grants Officer, Lira University

Member, Lira University Research Ethics Committee.

Lecturer, Department of Professional Studies, Faculty of Education.

Prior Teaching and professional Experience

2016-2018: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Makerere Institute of Social Research.

2014: Teaching Assistant, Makerere University, Department of History and Development Studies. (Courses taught: Development Theory and Contemporary Political Thought, Second Year Students)

2008-2010: Part Time Lecturer, All Saints University, Lira (ASUL) and Kampala International University, Lira Center. Courses taught: “Oral Literature”, The Novel”, “Drama”, “Receptive and Communication Skills”, and “Phonology of English.”

2008-2011: Secondary School Teacher, St Katherine Secondary School, Lira.

1995-2007: Secondary School Teacher, Lango College

Community Engagement Responsibilities

2018-todate: Awitong (Clan Leader), Okarowok Wibye Acel:

Duties: Mediation and conflict resolution, building leadership capacity of clan leaders, empowering marginalized and disadvantaged members of the clan, negotiating formal and informal justice practices, etc.

2009-todate: Member of Lango Language Board:

 Duties: Promoting and preserving Leblango, advancing scientific use of Lablango in schools, colleges and other intellectual media, promoting writing and publication in Leblango, expanding and promoting the translation bureau of Lango Language Board, etc

Fellowships and Grants Won

2018-July 2019: American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), African Humanities Program Postdoctoral Fellowship: “War and Urbanization: An Ethnographic Study of Dislocation and Urban Formation in Bweyale and Kiryandongo in Postwar Northern Uganda”. Project Period: June March 2016-May 2018:

Postdoctoral Research Fellowship; Makerere Institute of Social Research, Makerere University Kampala.

2012-2016: Makerere Institute of Social Research’s Interdisciplinary PhD Fellowship in Social Studies.

2013-2015: International Development Research Council/Carnegie Corporation of New York (IDRC/CCNY) Grant for Peace building and State building under the project “Beyond Criminal Justice”.

2015-16: Next Generation Social Science Research Council Fellowship for Dissertation Completion.

2015-16: University of Michigan African Presidential Scholars Residence Fellowship.

2016/17: American Council for Learned Societies/African Humanities Program Fellowship for Dissertation Writing.

2019: Manuscript/Book Development Project with African Humanities Program, now African Humanities Association.

Non-Academic Profile

2020: Reviewer with Journal of Contemporary African Studies

 2015- 2018: Chairman, Lango Language Board.

2016 to date: Reviewer with Next Generation Social Science Research Council.

2008-to 2015: General Secretary Lango Language Board.

2010-2018: Senior Presidential Assistant, Media Management (Retainer Basis)

2005-todate: Executive/Artistic Director, United Troupers Group.

Conferences attended/scholarly papers presented:

27-28^th September 2023: International Conference on Education, Justice and Memory: Remembering the Abia Massacres of February 2004: Paper Presented: “Transitory Memory and Artistic Mutation in the Performance of Pain of Abia Massacre in Northern Uganda

18^th-24^th October 2019. AHP Manuscript Development Workshop, Abuja, Nigeria

June 18^th -23^rd 2019.

Panel Discussant at the African Union Regional Conference on Elimination of Child Marriage and Female Genital Mutilation; Sheraton, Cairo International Hotel, Cairo, Egypt.

September 19^th – 22^nd 2018:

 Gender Conference, “Staying Concerned with Gender” at Iriba Center for Multi Media Heritage in Kigali, Rwanda. I presented a paper entitled “Indexicality of Naming and Social Maturation among the Langi, a Nilotic Tribe in Northern Uganda”.

16^th-17^th July 2018.

Presented a paper entitled “Reconfiguring Youth Livelihoods in the Postwar Northern Uganda”, at an International Conference in Gulu, Northern Uganda. Conference theme: Environmental Politics: Environmental Justice.).

July 11, 2018.

Attended and presented paper entitled “The Intellectual History and the Critical Legacies of Transition, a Literary Magazine at Makerere Institute of Social Research, Makerere University, Kampala, in memory of Rajat Neogy, the Founding Editor of Transition

 July 3^rd2017

Consultative Meeting on Peacebuilding Education in African Universities, organized by the Department of International Relations, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, at Westwood Hotel, Ikoyi, Lagos, Nigeria. Concept Note presented: Rethinking Participation and Peace Building from Below. Methodological and Pedagogical Challenges to African Universities.

December 3^rd-6^th, 2015

Africa N’ko (Africa in the world), “Translation: Interpreting African Realities”, Dakar, Senegal. Paper presented: “Author, Text, and Object: Literary Translation of War Monuments in Northern Uganda”.

September 24^th -26^th, 2015

Africa-Asia: A New Axis of Knowledge, Accra, Ghana. Paper presented: “Hidden Ruins: Contradictions in Post-war Discourses of Intervention and Restoration in northern Uganda”. 18-22 November 2015:

African Study Association Conference, San Diego, USA, “Justice and Peace after war: Conceptual Difficulties in the Discourses of Transition and Reform.

May 19^th-24^th, 2015

CCNY/IDRC Peace Building/State Building Conference in New York City, USA.

December 11^th-14^th, 2014

Research Findings by Makerere Institute of Social Research on “Beyond Criminal Justice, Survivors’ justice as an alternative to the Nuremberg/criminal justice paradigm to conflict management and peacebuilding in Africa.

15Jth July-19^th July 2014

‘Surviving Genocide and Possibility of Representation’ at The Max Planck Institute of Social Anthropology, Halle, Germany, “Oral Performers and Memory of a Social War: Dynamics of Individual and Collective Remembering.

March 6^th-9^th, 2007:  

“Cosmopolitan versus Homogeneity: Emerging Opposites in Contemporary Global Cities”, Inclusive African Cities Conference, University of Witwatersrand; Johannesburg, South Africa

May 17^th-19th 2006:     

“Reconstructing Civil Images and Identity Crisis in a Post War Era:  the Fear of Capital Embargo and its Impact on the Peace Agenda in Northern Uganda”; Joint Conference on Civil Society, Governance and Regional Integration in Africa, Addis- Ababa, Ethiopia

February 1^st-7^th, 2004:            

Modified version of “Negotiating Neoliberal Influences and Popular Renaissance in Africa:  The Narrative Discourses in African Cinema” at the 9^th All India Cultural Studies Workshop, Bangalore, India

March 21^st-22^nd, 2003:         

 “Oral Performers in the Mediation of the Conflict in Northern Uganda”; Organisation for Social Science Research for Eastern Africa (OSSREA), Makerere University, Kampala.

Dec 7^th-14^th, 2003:     

“Negotiating Neoliberal Influences and Popular Renaissance in Africa: The Narrative Discourses in African Cinema, at the 30th Anniversary of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, (CODESRIA), Dakar, Senegal.

Academic Publications

2019. “Author, Object, and Text: Literary Reading of War Monuments in northern Uganda”, In Translation Revisited, Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

2017: “Oral performers and memory of mass violence”, in: Memory and Genocide. On what Remains and Possibility of Representation. Eds.; Fazil Moradi, Raph Buchenhurst, and Maria Six-Hohenbalken, London and New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group.

2015: “Justice and Peace after War: Conceptual Difficulties in the Discourses of Transition and Reform in Post-war Societies”. Makerere Institute of Social Research, MISR Working Paper No. 26 Oct. 2015.

2009: “Reconstructing Civil Images and Identity Crisis in a Post War Era:  The Fear of Capital Embargo and its Impact on the Peace Agenda in Northern Uganda” in  Civil Society, Governance and Regional Integration in Africa, Ed., Adekunle Amuwo, HippolytPul, Irene O. Adadevoh, Addis Ababa: Development Management Forum (DPMF)

2005: “Negotiating Neoliberal Influences and Popular Renaissance in Africa: the Narrative Discourses in African Cinema”, in Gender and Representation, ed. Murindwa Rutanga, Centre for Basic Research/ENRECA Occasional Papers Series Vol. 7, 70-81

Literary Publications

1996:  The Alien Woman (a novel), Kampala: Fountain Publishers.

2010. With James Ocita, and Godman Okonye. Twa me Ngec (Lango Treasure Chest), Kampala: Fountain Publishers Ltd.

 2011:  Apit Arac (a Luo play), Kampala, Fountain Publishers Ltd

2002: Ruins of a Star (novelette), Kampala: Fountain Publishers.

2003:  Juma the Carpenter (Children’s fiction).  Kampala: Fountain Publishers Ltd

Forthcoming Publications

Fire of Wrath (adult fiction) to be published by Fountain Publishers

Unpublished Plays Written, Directed and Performed

2010:  “Wibye Pwot” (The Anthill is slippery), a radio drama series in Lango language

featuring free and fair elections as theme. 

2009: “AdidedideTucu Min Bul” (Persistence Breaks the Mother Drum), a radio drama

Series in Lango language about the effects of HIV/Aids on Education and Development. 2007: “Ladwar Lyec, Lyec ma bene Neke”(A Tough Hunter of the Elephant is killed by the Elephant, radio drama series featuring gender based violence and HIV/Aids in schools and communities.

2006: “Kidi Ogedo Okwero” (Stones Rejected by the Builders), a postwar resettlement community drama performed throughout Lira district in 2006-7, financially supported by Sponsoring Children Uganda, a Children’s NGO in Northern Uganda at that time.

Consultancy Works

Dec.2009-Jan 2010:

Popular Arts Consultant with PANOS Eastern Africa (a media consortium). Theme: The impact of poverty on democracy and governance in Northern Uganda.

November 2008-March 2009: Drama Consultant; International Labor Organization (ILO), Small Enterprise Media in Africa (SEMA):Radio drama intervention on the impact of HIV/Aids on the business activity among the fishing communities in Northern Uganda.

Jan-March 2007:

 Community Outreach Consultant; Christian Children’s Fund (CCF) (Theme: Gender Based Violence and its effects on education among the Returning (post war) Communities in Lira.

April-June 2007:

Radio Drama and Capacity Building Consultant; Inter-Regional Information Network (IRIN) Nairobi; to train women groups in the displaced people’s camps in Gulu, Northern Uganda (Theme: Gender Based Violence Awareness campaign).

June-Oct. 2007:

Consultant Drama Director with United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR, Gulu Regional Office); on Transitional Justice System, Accountability and Reconciliation in Northern Uganda.

Jan.-Dec.2006: 

Playwright and Drama Director with Sponsoring Children, Uganda to facilitate the reintegration and rehabilitation of formerly abducted children in Northern Uganda through vocational training and rebuilding of community ethical infrastructures.

June-Dec.2005: 

Commissioned playwright and drama director; World Food Programme (Theme: Public Health drama for internally displaced people in Lira town)

2002-2005: 

Training consultant, Fountain Publishers, Kampala (Theme: Using fiction books to Provide HIV/Aids Education to the Youth)

Academic Working Papers Reviewed

2019, Reviews for Makerere Institute of Social Research

Anena. “Effects of the NAADS Programme on Sustainable Livelihoods of Female Farmers in Central Uganda”.

Manyire. “Not Business as Usual: Transformation in Gendered Small holder Agricultural Practices in Ugandan Villages”.

Ebila. “Ugandan Women Journalists Breaking New Grounds in Conflict Reporting”.

Kalyango. “What is Home? Gender and Decision to Return to Northern Uganda”.

Kindi. “Mainstreaming Gender in the Private Sector: Possibilities and Challenges in Uganda”.

Baine. “Gender Mainstreaming for Promotion of Gender Equality: Gains and Challenges in Uganda’s Higher Institution   of Education”.

Nsibirano. “Awareness of Library Electronic Resources among Academic Staff: A gender analysis”.

Namuggala. “Not mere Victims: Agency and Resilience among Sexually Violated Returnee Young People in Northeastern Uganda”.

Kabunesa and Glatzer. “Changes and Transformation: Gender Responsive Budgeting in Education Sector in Uganda”.

2020. For Review for Journal of Contemporary African Studies, Paper title: “Who asks the Questions. Sustainable Research Futures in Uganda.

Academic Reference Persons

1. Professor Ernest Okello Ogwang, Academic Adviser and Associate Professor of Literature, Makerere University, Kampala. +256 771 005 465; Email: mtmoroto@gmail.com
2. Adam Branch, Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and International Affairs University of Cambridge, UK

       Email: arb209@cam.ac.uk

3. Professor Mahmood Mamdani, Executive Director, MISR. mm1124@columbia.edu

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