Deadly secret: situating the unknowing and knowing of the source of the Ebola epidemic in Northern Uganda

This article critically examines the unknowing of the source of the Ebola epidemic in Northern Uganda, in 2000/1, by asking how this unknowing has been achieved and has shaped the disease situation. Specifically, this article follows my informants’ explanation that soldiers of the Uganda People's Defence Force had brought the disease from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Uganda. This account is widely rejected as a rumour by scientists, who insist that the source of the epidemic remains unknown. By contrast, I suggest that following these stories, as embodied experiences of the multiple connections between war and epidemics, human and nonhuman lives, provides crucial insights into the political ecology of Ebola in the wider region – a region where, even today, conflict and Ebola outbreaks are intricately interwoven. Understanding how unknowing is achieved and shapes a disease situation directs attention to forms of silent knowing, which illuminate what preparedness means in the political ecology of Ebola.