The memories they want: autobiography in the chaos of Sierra Leone

Residents of Makeni, Sierra Leone narrate the chaos, uncertainty, and terror of their town's occupation by rebels by speaking of time in ways substantively different than those used to mark ordinary times. Instead of `what happened' and `when,' narrators have created a mnemonic community emphasizing `who happened,' and maintain the sense of suspended time and hopelessness that define their story of abandonment by the government. This article shows that people explicitly denied the preeminence of event chronology, making time an epiphenomenon of relationships, and refused to name a date in which the war ended until the government made amends for allowing the occupation.