Sharing Land, Sharing Faith: Ground Ethics amongst Missionaries and Ik in Uganda

Abstract

When do ethics of sharing, or ‘something for something’ logics of exchange, apply? This article explores this question based on fieldwork amongst the Ik community and missionaries in Uganda. It examines interactions of sharing and exchange and how situational communities of belonging and resonance are created, but also pays attention to tensions between groups. A variety of sharing ethics form the basis for everyday interactions within the Ik community, such as the sharing of mountain landscapes and the sharing of land for agriculture. These and other ethics of sharing are part of everyday life yet seldom without friction and contestation. When international missionaries came to the Ik mountains to ‘spread the word of God’, they too were driven by ethics of sharing: their call was to share faith. Yet, moralities of exchange were also crucial for missionaries to convey. Nuances between sharing and exchange, borrowing and stealing became continuous sources of friction and negotiation between locals and foreigners. Three cases describing different kinds of sharing and exchange between the missionaries and the Ik provide material for rethinking ethics of sharing phenomenologically in relation to territories, faith and material items. The article draws on Knud Løgstrup’s ideas about ground ethics and contributes to the literature on sharing and ethics by pointing to how communities of belonging and resonance may arise out of sharing practices, but also how friction builds up when parties do not agree about whether a transaction is a form of sharing or one of exchange and which ethics to apply.