'What Made the Elephant Rise Up from the Shade?': Relationships in Transition and Negotiating Silence in Mozambique

'What Made the Elephant Rise Up from the Shade?': Relationships in Transition and Negotiating Silence in Mozambique

This chapter focuses on relationships in transition following periods of protracted civil wars and severe famine and it how people negotiated the resetting of their shattered social relations in Gorongosa, a district in the center of Mozambique. In this region, interactions among war survivors and post-war generations are shaped by a set of disturbing legacies of past violations, allegedly perpetrated by kin members during the country's civil war (1976–1992) and severe famine (1988–1992). Yet, decades afterwards, the survivors and their offspring do not make the memories of these disturbing experiences straightforwardly accessible to others outside the intimate spaces of kin relations. In everyday life, they can unburden their experiences of personal victimization and family loss, but they remain mute in relation to family and personal involvement in serious violations. What uses do war survivors and their offspring make of such silence? What is the meaning of silence in communities affected by war and famine? How is silence within relationships handled among families with tainted memories of past serious violence? By addressing these questions, I suggest that in communities in conflict disclosures of serious violations are never complete, and that silence is a form of collective action that, in specific circumstances, is interrupted by unexpected accusations of serious violations allegedly perpetrated by kin members. Such accusations pave the way for the negotiation and resolution of protracted conflicts.