Lecture
LUCIP Colloquium "Philosophies of Justice in Acholi. Responsibility in Times of Collective Suffering"
- Date
- Friday 11 December 2026
- Time
- Location
-
Herta Mohr
Witte Singel 27A
2311 BG Leiden - Room
- 0.06
The Leiden University Centre of Intercultural Philosophy is pleased to announce a lecture by Dr. Benedetta Lanfranchi, adjuct professor specialized in African and comparative philosophy at the American University of Rome.
Abstract
Since 2008 Ugandans residing in the northern region of Acholiland have been faced with the uncertainties of justice stemming from the twenty-year civil war waged between the Ugandan government and Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). Seeking accountability and reconciliation within their communities, Acholi and non-Acholi have had to grapple with large-scale practical and philosophical questions: Whose legal system should deliver justice for victims, and what are the aims and responsibilities of justice as a concept?
Philosophies of Justice in Acholi focuses on Acholi traditional mechanisms of justice (ATJMs), which became the central framework for jurisprudence outlined in the peace agreements that were brokered from 2006 to 2008. Framing community members' responsibilities in terms of their ancestral beings has facilitated a justice process that understands the inseparable relations between individuals and groups and thus provides pathways to reclaim social, moral, and material lives. While ATJMs have thus far fallen short of addressing national and global polities' responsibilities in the conflict, their core premises hold promise for defining Uganda's still-developing political justice process and for humans everywhere seeking justice.
Delving into understandings of fairness, responsibility, and group identity, Philosophies of Justice in Acholi reveals that justice, and its effect on collective existence, is always political.
Book at the Indiana University Press, 2025: Philosophies of Justice in Acholi
About
Benedetta Lanfranchi is a world philosopher based in Rome and specialized in African and comparative philosophy. She teaches ethics and political thought at the American Universities of Rome and Florence. She is author of Philosophies of Justice in Acholi (2025), co-editor of Critical Conversations in African Philosophy (2022), and is currently writing her second monograph entitled Digital Intellectuals: Fighting for Freedom in Uganda under the framework of PHIGE. She previously held positions at SOAS, University of London, the Makerere Institute for Social Research (MISR) in Kampala, and the University of Bayreuth.
Trained in Anglo-European philosophy, Lanfranchi specialised in African philosophy during her PhD at SOAS, University of London, and has taught pre-modern, European, and African philosophy at universities in the UK, Germany, Uganda, and Italy since 2014. Her research spans World Philosophies, African Philosophy, and Political Philosophy. She is a member of the Editorial Board for the Africa volumes of the Outline of the History of Philosophy with Schwabe Verlag publishers.
All are welcome!