Adam Branch
Biographic Data
| ID | 153940 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Adam Branch |
| GIVEN NAMES | Adam |
| FAMILY NAME | Branch |
| SIGNATURE | BRANCH A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Cambridge |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7907-2493 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 181 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
The charcoal web
Charcoal is the predominant household energy source in many African cities and has been a major industry throughout the continent for decades. Despite charcoal’s critical importance to urban energy provision and social order, however, production and trade have often been subject to neglect, arbitrary repression, and rent extraction by African states that officially aspire to ‘modern’ energy and blame charcoal for environmental harm. This presents…
Ecocide, the Anthropocene, and the International Criminal Court
The recent proposal by the Independent Expert Panel of the Stop Ecocide initiative to include the crime of ecocide in the International Criminal Court's Rome Statute has raised expectations for preventing and remedying severe environmental harm through international prosecution. As alluring as this image is, we argue that ecocide prosecutions may be the most difficult, perhaps even impossible, in precisely the cases that the ICC would need to be …
Charcoal politics in Africa
Charcoal is a primary urban energy source throughout Africa; it is also blamed for massive environmental harm, in particular deforestation and forest degradation. Despite its centrality to urbanization, rural economies, and contemporary environmental transformations, however, charcoal's politics have been relatively underexplored. This article develops three approaches to the study of charcoal politics in Africa by critically assessing the existi…
The fragmented politics of sugarcane contract farming in Uganda
In the last decade, contract farming has regained momentum among policymakers and global development agencies as a tool to promote inclusive rural development and responsible investments. Integrating smallholders within global, regional and national agricultural value chains, we are told, represents the sine qua non for alleviating rural poverty. In Uganda, under the label of out‐grower schemes, contract farming is currently undergoing massive ex…
From crisis to context
Charcoal power
From disaster to devastation
This paper proposes a shift from the concept of disaster to one of devastation when dealing with the destructive consequences of climate change. It argues that today, a discourse of climate-change disaster has become dominant, in which present disasters are seen as harbingers of a future of widespread climate disaster, products of a global nature in upheaval. The paper contends that one needs to go beyond the series of dichotomies that the climat…
Decolonizing the African Studies Centre
The African Studies Centre has been a privileged institutional form in Britain for knowledge production on Africa since the end of colonialism. This article argues that the origin of these UK centres should be located in the colonial research institutes established in Africa, in particular the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute and the East African Institute of Social Research. Attention to the knowledge about Africa that was deemed authoritative by th…
Africa’s Third Wave of Protests
La nouvelle vague de protestations qui a eu lieu en Afrique s'est ajoutée à une histoire déjà longue de lutte sur le continent. Ces protestations sont significatives pour l'éventail des groupes qui y ont participé, pour les modes distinctifs de protestation utilisés ainsi que pour ce que beaucoup d'entre eux ont réalisé. Malgré le fait que la dernière vague de protestations et de soulèvements soit passée presque inaperçue dans les médias grand pu…
Dominic Ongwen on Trial
The trial of former Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) commander Dominic Ongwen at the International Criminal Court (ICC) comes at a critical moment for the Court. Its almost exclusive focus on Africa has made the ICC a de facto regional transitional justice body, but this approach is now facing a backlash from African states, threatening the Court’s very viability. The Ongwen trial throws into relief the dilemmas of the ICC’s Africa strategy and shows…
Africa uprising
From Egypt to South Africa, Nigeria to Ethiopia, a new force for political change is emerging across Africa: popular protest. Widespread urban uprisings by youth, the unemployed, trade unions, activists, writers, artists, and religious groups are challenging injustice and inequality. What is driving this new wave of protest? Is it the key to substantive political change? Drawing on interviews and in-depth analysis, Adam Branch and Zachariah Mampi…
The Violence of Peace
Traditional justice, or what this article refers to as 'ethnojustice', claims to promote social reconstruction, peace and justice after episodes of war by rebuilding traditional order. Ethnojustice has become an increasingly prominent mode of transitional justice in northern Uganda. As such interventions multiply throughout Africa, it is essential to probe their political and practical consequences. This article situates ethnojustice theoreticall…
Gulu in War … and Peace? The Town as Camp in Northern Uganda
This paper begins by exploring the unique place of Gulu Town within the 20-year civil war in northern Uganda (1986–2006). It describes the conditions faced by the large internally displaced population of Gulu during the war and explains why the town has remained relatively stable despite the massive influx it experienced of uprooted rural Acholi. The paper explores the social changes that have occurred among the displaced population within Gulu’s…
The Paradoxes of Protection
Protection has risen to prominence over the past decade in fields from humanitarian practice to military operations. Its rise, however, has been characterized by a lack of clarity over what it means in practice. This article attempts to discern the politics of protection by examining a specific case: the international effort to protect civilians from the Lord's Resistance Army. It argues that the initiatives being mounted to protect civilians fro…
Displacing Human RightsWar and Intervention in Northern Uganda
This title lays bare the reductive understandings motivating Western intervention in Africa, the inadequate tools it insists on employing, its refusal to be accountable to African citizenries, and, most important, its counterproductive consequences for peace, human rights, and justice.
Humanitarianism, Violence, and the Camp in Northern Uganda
This article shows how international humanitarianism and state violence developed a sustained relation of mutual support during the civil war in northern Uganda. This collaboration was anchored in the archipelago of forced displacement camps, which at the peak of the war contained about a million people, and which were only able to exist because of, first, the violence of the Ugandan state in forcing people into them, preventing people from leavi…
Against Humanitarian Impunity
Given that humanitarian organizations can often be responsible for enabling, prolonging or intensifying violence and conflict through their interventions into war zones, it is important that these organizations, despite their presumed neutrality and beneficence, be held accountable for the deleterious consequences of their actions. The case of northern Uganda will be used to demonstrate how humanitarian agencies have made possible the government'…
Uganda's Civil War and the Politics of ICC Intervention
The International Criminal Court‘s intervention into the ongoing civil war in northern Uganda evoked a chorus of confident predictions as to its capacity to bring peace and justice to the war-torn region. This optimism is unwarranted, however. The article analyzes the consequences for peace and justice of the ICC's intervention, dividing them into two categories: those resulting from the political instrumentalization of the ICC by the Ugandan gov…
American Morality over International Law
Winning the war, but losing the peace? The dilemma of SPLM/A civil administration and the tasks ahead
The debate over peace in Sudan has centred on the ongoing talks in Naivasha, Kenya. This paper argues, however, that sustainable peace is not simply a function of the implementation of an agreement between the SPLA and Khartoum, but that other fracture lines will run through post-conflict Sudan. Here we draw attention to the rupture between the Dinka, dominant within the SPLA, and the Equatorian peoples of the far south, hundreds of thousands of …
Uganda's Civil War and the Politics of ICC Intervention
The International Criminal Court‘s intervention into the ongoing civil war in northern Uganda evoked a chorus of confident predictions as to its capacity to bring peace and justice to the war-torn region. This optimism is unwarranted, however. The article analyzes the consequences for peace and justice of the ICC's intervention, dividing them into two categories: those resulting from the political instrumentalization of the ICC by the Ugandan gov…
Humanitarianism, Violence, and the Camp in Northern Uganda
This article shows how international humanitarianism and state violence developed a sustained relation of mutual support during the civil war in northern Uganda. This collaboration was anchored in the archipelago of forced displacement camps, which at the peak of the war contained about a million people, and which were only able to exist because of, first, the violence of the Ugandan state in forcing people into them, preventing people from leavi…
Winning the war, but losing the peace? The dilemma of SPLM/A civil administration and the tasks ahead
The debate over peace in Sudan has centred on the ongoing talks in Naivasha, Kenya. This paper argues, however, that sustainable peace is not simply a function of the implementation of an agreement between the SPLA and Khartoum, but that other fracture lines will run through post-conflict Sudan. Here we draw attention to the rupture between the Dinka, dominant within the SPLA, and the Equatorian peoples of the far south, hundreds of thousands of …
Decolonizing the African Studies Centre
The African Studies Centre has been a privileged institutional form in Britain for knowledge production on Africa since the end of colonialism. This article argues that the origin of these UK centres should be located in the colonial research institutes established in Africa, in particular the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute and the East African Institute of Social Research. Attention to the knowledge about Africa that was deemed authoritative by th…
Charcoal power
Against Humanitarian Impunity
Given that humanitarian organizations can often be responsible for enabling, prolonging or intensifying violence and conflict through their interventions into war zones, it is important that these organizations, despite their presumed neutrality and beneficence, be held accountable for the deleterious consequences of their actions. The case of northern Uganda will be used to demonstrate how humanitarian agencies have made possible the government'…
The Violence of Peace
Traditional justice, or what this article refers to as 'ethnojustice', claims to promote social reconstruction, peace and justice after episodes of war by rebuilding traditional order. Ethnojustice has become an increasingly prominent mode of transitional justice in northern Uganda. As such interventions multiply throughout Africa, it is essential to probe their political and practical consequences. This article situates ethnojustice theoreticall…
Ecocide, the Anthropocene, and the International Criminal Court
The recent proposal by the Independent Expert Panel of the Stop Ecocide initiative to include the crime of ecocide in the International Criminal Court's Rome Statute has raised expectations for preventing and remedying severe environmental harm through international prosecution. As alluring as this image is, we argue that ecocide prosecutions may be the most difficult, perhaps even impossible, in precisely the cases that the ICC would need to be …
From disaster to devastation
This paper proposes a shift from the concept of disaster to one of devastation when dealing with the destructive consequences of climate change. It argues that today, a discourse of climate-change disaster has become dominant, in which present disasters are seen as harbingers of a future of widespread climate disaster, products of a global nature in upheaval. The paper contends that one needs to go beyond the series of dichotomies that the climat…
From crisis to context
Dominic Ongwen on Trial
The trial of former Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) commander Dominic Ongwen at the International Criminal Court (ICC) comes at a critical moment for the Court. Its almost exclusive focus on Africa has made the ICC a de facto regional transitional justice body, but this approach is now facing a backlash from African states, threatening the Court’s very viability. The Ongwen trial throws into relief the dilemmas of the ICC’s Africa strategy and shows…
The Paradoxes of Protection
Protection has risen to prominence over the past decade in fields from humanitarian practice to military operations. Its rise, however, has been characterized by a lack of clarity over what it means in practice. This article attempts to discern the politics of protection by examining a specific case: the international effort to protect civilians from the Lord's Resistance Army. It argues that the initiatives being mounted to protect civilians fro…
Charcoal politics in Africa
Charcoal is a primary urban energy source throughout Africa; it is also blamed for massive environmental harm, in particular deforestation and forest degradation. Despite its centrality to urbanization, rural economies, and contemporary environmental transformations, however, charcoal's politics have been relatively underexplored. This article develops three approaches to the study of charcoal politics in Africa by critically assessing the existi…
American Morality over International Law
American Morality over International Law
Winning the war, but losing the peace? The dilemma of SPLM/A civil administration and the tasks ahead
The debate over peace in Sudan has centred on the ongoing talks in Naivasha, Kenya. This paper argues, however, that sustainable peace is not simply a function of the implementation of an agreement between the SPLA and Khartoum, but that other fracture lines will run through post-conflict Sudan. Here we draw attention to the rupture between the Dinka, dominant within the SPLA, and the Equatorian peoples of the far south, hundreds of thousands of …
Uganda's Civil War and the Politics of ICC Intervention
The International Criminal Court‘s intervention into the ongoing civil war in northern Uganda evoked a chorus of confident predictions as to its capacity to bring peace and justice to the war-torn region. This optimism is unwarranted, however. The article analyzes the consequences for peace and justice of the ICC's intervention, dividing them into two categories: those resulting from the political instrumentalization of the ICC by the Ugandan gov…
Against Humanitarian Impunity
Given that humanitarian organizations can often be responsible for enabling, prolonging or intensifying violence and conflict through their interventions into war zones, it is important that these organizations, despite their presumed neutrality and beneficence, be held accountable for the deleterious consequences of their actions. The case of northern Uganda will be used to demonstrate how humanitarian agencies have made possible the government'…
Humanitarianism, Violence, and the Camp in Northern Uganda
This article shows how international humanitarianism and state violence developed a sustained relation of mutual support during the civil war in northern Uganda. This collaboration was anchored in the archipelago of forced displacement camps, which at the peak of the war contained about a million people, and which were only able to exist because of, first, the violence of the Ugandan state in forcing people into them, preventing people from leavi…
Displacing Human RightsWar and Intervention in Northern Uganda
This title lays bare the reductive understandings motivating Western intervention in Africa, the inadequate tools it insists on employing, its refusal to be accountable to African citizenries, and, most important, its counterproductive consequences for peace, human rights, and justice.
The Paradoxes of Protection
Protection has risen to prominence over the past decade in fields from humanitarian practice to military operations. Its rise, however, has been characterized by a lack of clarity over what it means in practice. This article attempts to discern the politics of protection by examining a specific case: the international effort to protect civilians from the Lord's Resistance Army. It argues that the initiatives being mounted to protect civilians fro…
Gulu in War … and Peace? The Town as Camp in Northern Uganda
This paper begins by exploring the unique place of Gulu Town within the 20-year civil war in northern Uganda (1986–2006). It describes the conditions faced by the large internally displaced population of Gulu during the war and explains why the town has remained relatively stable despite the massive influx it experienced of uprooted rural Acholi. The paper explores the social changes that have occurred among the displaced population within Gulu’s…
The Violence of Peace
Traditional justice, or what this article refers to as 'ethnojustice', claims to promote social reconstruction, peace and justice after episodes of war by rebuilding traditional order. Ethnojustice has become an increasingly prominent mode of transitional justice in northern Uganda. As such interventions multiply throughout Africa, it is essential to probe their political and practical consequences. This article situates ethnojustice theoreticall…
Africa uprising
From Egypt to South Africa, Nigeria to Ethiopia, a new force for political change is emerging across Africa: popular protest. Widespread urban uprisings by youth, the unemployed, trade unions, activists, writers, artists, and religious groups are challenging injustice and inequality. What is driving this new wave of protest? Is it the key to substantive political change? Drawing on interviews and in-depth analysis, Adam Branch and Zachariah Mampi…
Africa’s Third Wave of Protests
La nouvelle vague de protestations qui a eu lieu en Afrique s'est ajoutée à une histoire déjà longue de lutte sur le continent. Ces protestations sont significatives pour l'éventail des groupes qui y ont participé, pour les modes distinctifs de protestation utilisés ainsi que pour ce que beaucoup d'entre eux ont réalisé. Malgré le fait que la dernière vague de protestations et de soulèvements soit passée presque inaperçue dans les médias grand pu…
Dominic Ongwen on Trial
The trial of former Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) commander Dominic Ongwen at the International Criminal Court (ICC) comes at a critical moment for the Court. Its almost exclusive focus on Africa has made the ICC a de facto regional transitional justice body, but this approach is now facing a backlash from African states, threatening the Court’s very viability. The Ongwen trial throws into relief the dilemmas of the ICC’s Africa strategy and shows…
Charcoal power
From disaster to devastation
This paper proposes a shift from the concept of disaster to one of devastation when dealing with the destructive consequences of climate change. It argues that today, a discourse of climate-change disaster has become dominant, in which present disasters are seen as harbingers of a future of widespread climate disaster, products of a global nature in upheaval. The paper contends that one needs to go beyond the series of dichotomies that the climat…
Decolonizing the African Studies Centre
The African Studies Centre has been a privileged institutional form in Britain for knowledge production on Africa since the end of colonialism. This article argues that the origin of these UK centres should be located in the colonial research institutes established in Africa, in particular the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute and the East African Institute of Social Research. Attention to the knowledge about Africa that was deemed authoritative by th…
The fragmented politics of sugarcane contract farming in Uganda
In the last decade, contract farming has regained momentum among policymakers and global development agencies as a tool to promote inclusive rural development and responsible investments. Integrating smallholders within global, regional and national agricultural value chains, we are told, represents the sine qua non for alleviating rural poverty. In Uganda, under the label of out‐grower schemes, contract farming is currently undergoing massive ex…
From crisis to context
Ecocide, the Anthropocene, and the International Criminal Court
The recent proposal by the Independent Expert Panel of the Stop Ecocide initiative to include the crime of ecocide in the International Criminal Court's Rome Statute has raised expectations for preventing and remedying severe environmental harm through international prosecution. As alluring as this image is, we argue that ecocide prosecutions may be the most difficult, perhaps even impossible, in precisely the cases that the ICC would need to be …
Charcoal politics in Africa
Charcoal is a primary urban energy source throughout Africa; it is also blamed for massive environmental harm, in particular deforestation and forest degradation. Despite its centrality to urbanization, rural economies, and contemporary environmental transformations, however, charcoal's politics have been relatively underexplored. This article develops three approaches to the study of charcoal politics in Africa by critically assessing the existi…
The charcoal web
Charcoal is the predominant household energy source in many African cities and has been a major industry throughout the continent for decades. Despite charcoal’s critical importance to urban energy provision and social order, however, production and trade have often been subject to neglect, arbitrary repression, and rent extraction by African states that officially aspire to ‘modern’ energy and blame charcoal for environmental harm. This presents…
Political science (18 works) · Sociology (15 works) · Politics (13 works) · Law (12 works) · Law (9 works) · Global Peace and Security Dynamics (8 works) · Political economy (7 works) · Economics (6 works) · Geography (5 works) · Public Administration (5 works)