This study explores the role of food and commensality within the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda, focusing on the period between 1987 and 2008. Using the case of Apili (pseudonym), abducted in 1996, the article examines how households within the LRA were organized around shared eating practices. These households often included multiple wives, prepubescent girls, and junior soldiers, all of whom consumed meals communally from a single pot, mirroring peacetime family structures in northern Uganda. The analysis highlights the structured responsibilities surrounding food preparation and distribution: wives were assigned to cook not only for their husband’s household but also for the household’s junior soldiers, ensuring that all members’ nutritional needs were met. This system of shared meals and food labor served as a mechanism for social cohesion, reinforcing hierarchical relationships, integrating new recruits, and sustaining loyalty within the group. By focusing on the mundane yet critical practice of eating, the study sheds light on how food functioned as a tool for both survival and social regulation within a non-state armed group. It demonstrates that commensality in the LRA was more than a logistical necessity—it was a culturally embedded practice that maintained social order, reinforced bonds, and facilitated the integration of abductees into the group’s complex social structure. Through this lens, the study contributes to broader understandings of war, social organization, and the subtle ways in which everyday practices like eating can shape relationships, hierarchies, and identities in conflict settings.
Chukwuemeka Ifeoma Nwankwo (Wed,) studied this question.