This book, a revised PhD thesis, discusses village life in eastern Uganda. It is organised around anecdotal cases situated in Oledai, Tesoland. By way of introduction to the book, I will briefly paraphrase one such case (pp. 84–5). Several years ago, a man accused his brother-in-law of beating up his sister. The brother-in-law's uncle happened to be the village council chairman who intervened so that the charges were dropped. Next, the chairman summoned the man, and fined him a sizeable sum. End of case. Now, this may seem a disproportionate response, yet the incident apparently met with little local opposition, because, as the author concludes, ‘there is a general convention in Teso society that young men should be respectful to old men’. This fragment uncovers three important problems of the book, which I will discuss below.

(1) It deals with a local village event. This happens throughout the book, and Jones thus creates the impression of Tesoland as an autonomous social system. That is problematic in view of references to migration – in colonial times (e.g. as soldiers), and, more recently, as returnees from the insurgency (pp. 145–6). Also, outmigration from Teso to other areas in Uganda is on-going: one meets migrant Teso fishermen along Lake Victoria. Further, Teso has a long history of insertion into broader political dynamics (Amin & Obote administrations), and of economic (cotton exports, state pensions) integration. Jones hardly explores these linkages in today's world, and this makes it difficult to investigate the alternative viewpoint: Tesoland is in many respects part of Ugandan society and can therefore not be studied in isolation from it.

(2) It suggests that local institutions work surprisingly well: village courts settle disputes (pp. 63–90), other cases report how burial societies collect taxes (pp. 133–56), and churches function as leadership platforms (pp. 91–132). Further, these institutions have adapted to changes in the North; for instance Pentecostal churches, previously marginal, gained quickly in prominence after the Teso insurgency of the early 1990s because they opened up new avenues for personal mobility (p. 110). Thus Jones offers a functionalist interpretation of social change: village institutions present an integrative force that serves to maintain social order. The Ugandan state, in contrast, is viewed as dysfunctional because, as Jones argues, it is no longer interested in rural development (p. 74). Yet, this presents a one-sided portrayal of government influence in Tesoland: the photographic material in the book evidences the existence of (state-sponsored) roads, we see people in markets paying with (presumably Ugandan) money, and there are government schools.

(3) From fragments such as this, it is difficult to glean the perspective of common Ugandan villagers: the fined man's view is not included, and therefore we do not know whether he agreed with the ruling, or whether it merely shows the operation of an ideology of consent. This is because, throughout the book, Jones relies on statements collected in an interview situation, not on observed behaviour. Yet, when studying political institutions in Africa, relying on interviews runs the risk of merely reproducing local ideologies and/or social hierarchies. Understanding power contestations and other actual social practices that shape social change ‘from below’, as Jones claims to do, requires a research methodology that is based on observation. Through grounding analysis in careful observation we can begin to consider what really happens beyond the state in Uganda.

In brief, to the general reader the book offers a glimpse into institutional change in rural Uganda. However, had the book included observed practices of local actors, it would have contributed more satisfactorily to the understanding of the dynamics driving these changes.