Grace Akello
Grace Akello was a Visiting Professor and Ruth Glass Fellow at the LSE’s Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa. She spent a sabbatical at the Institute in 2018 and has worked closely with the Centre for Public Authority and International Development. Her research focuses on gendered transitional justice, pandemic and epidemic preparedness, and how people living through complex health emergencies prioritise and manage everyday challenges. She is currently Associate Professor of Medical Anthropology and Head of the Department of Mental Health at Gulu University’s Faculty of Medicine, where she coordinates the Master of Medical Anthropology Programme.
Can you tell us about your work, and what brought you to the Institute?
I am a medical anthropologist. My work focuses on health and healthcare in complex emergencies—particularly in war-affected settings and in contexts shaped by epidemics and pandemics. During my doctoral research among displaced persons in northern Uganda, I became fascinated by trauma-focused responses to war-related violence. I observed a persistent disconnect between the needs and priorities of war-affected people and the interventions designed to support their well-being.
In northern Uganda, several epidemics occurred during the 1986–2007 conflict. Even common diseases such as malaria reached epidemic levels during this period. Medical anthropologists do not view epidemics as neutral events; rather, we analyse the “causes of the causes,” in line with LSE’s overarching philosophy. This approach made me feel very much at home at FLIA and at LSE.
In my ethnographic work with communities affected by epidemics and pandemics, I examine why populations are affected differently, why women are often more likely to become infected than men, and why, during war, women and children are disproportionately affected by violence and other stressors. For example, in our work on the oughtness of care during Ebola, we showed that many mothers were more likely to contract the virus because of their gendered caregiving roles. Similarly, densely populated urban areas where poorer populations live, often characterised by overcrowding and poor sanitation, are more vulnerable to severe disease outbreaks. Thus, while a virus may be the immediate cause of an epidemic, the “causes of the cause” that explain unequal mortality include structural violence, poverty, lack of clean water, and barriers to accessing and adhering to preventive measures.
How did your time at the Institute shape your research?
At LSE, I participated in seminars, networked with leading scholars, and engaged with their arguments about local and global events. As the saying goes, iron sharpens iron. By the end of my sabbatical, I felt deeply motivated to pursue further medical anthropological inquiry.
This directly shaped my work on transitional justice, where I focused on survivors’ acts of resistance in northern Uganda. I argued that the “cause of the cause” of these resistance acts lay in the fact that amnesty and legal frameworks guiding the reintegration of former LRA fighters largely neglected survivors’ needs for justice and reparation. As a result, survivors took matters into their own hands, making the lives of former LRA fighters extremely difficult.
In my work on the intergenerational transmission of trauma among children associated with former LRA combatants (published in the Research Handbook of Children and Armed Conflict) I demonstrate how survivors’ unresolved grievances contribute to the stigmatisation and alienation of these children, and I explore what can be done to address this.
What did you most enjoy about working with the Institute?
FLIA has a very strong management team, drawing on decades of multicultural administrative experience and thoughtful allocation of tasks and activities. Beyond this, researchers and visiting professors are largely self-directed and engage through groups and seminars, which is a productive way of working for academics.
Most importantly, I enjoyed being part of the FLIA community. I felt welcomed, supported in navigating a complex multicultural environment, and truly at home away from home. I was even able to visit Dorset and take part in fossil-hunting for dinosaurs.
What do you think is the value of having a dedicated Africa Institute at LSE?
A dedicated Africa Institute serves multiple purposes. Many global challenges, such as poverty, disease, armed violence, and corruption, are often portrayed as uniquely African problems. LSE is not only an academic institution but also one that operates at the intersection of scholarship, activism, and mediation.
Academic engagement with any phenomenon requires interdisciplinarity and sensitivity to cultural diversity. LSE is strategically positioned to serve as a hub that amplifies Africa’s local ideas within global academic and policy arenas.
What do you think have been the highlights of the last 10 years of the Institute?
One highlight has been the Africa Summit at LSE. It is phenomenal to witness students collaboratively organising an event of such scale, one that centres African experiences, perspectives, and ideas.
What do you hope we will be able to achieve in the next 10 years?
When I visited the FLIA offices in 2025, I was struck by the relentlessness and dedication of the work being done. Over the next decade, I see many scholars from Africa, and those working on Africa, coming together to collaborate and critically interrogate dominant discourses. This collective effort will form a formidable and unstoppable force. That such a force is based in the heart of London while centring Africa’s experiences in global discourse is an exciting prospect, one that is still unfolding.