‘There is No Fixed time’: Epidemic Preparedness and Relational Time Among Acholi Refugees in Uganda

Techno-scientifically orientated public health approaches to epidemic preparedness are based on a linear temporality, and struggle to embrace the uncertainty surrounding unpredictable and uncontrollable events. Long-term ethnographic research with Acholi refugees in northern Uganda explored epidemics and other unexpected occurrences past, present, and future. For interlocutors, epidemics were "like the wind" - indeterminate and inseparable from people, the environment, and spiritual powers. Refugees anticipated and incorporated unpredictable and uncontrollable situations, such as epidemics, into their day-to-day lives. This was grounded in a relational temporality and a search for equilibrium. Accommodating such valuble perspectives requires a re-thinking of preparedness.