So, it took me 8 years to free myself from these expectations — and to craft the material into an argument I was satisfied with. #slowscholarship requires a modicum of relative job stability. Now I am very happy that this has found a home in such a fantastic African Studies journal as #ASR, where the careful and meticulous reviewers and the editors helped me finalise the argument and present a story that is seldom told, i.e. experiences of the #Angolan #civilwar in the north. h/t to my colleagues who paved the way with far more detailed research on UNITA’s politics and governance in the centre and south of the country (extensively cited in the text) and thanks to my former colleagues on the #SNIS ‘War and State Formation’ project, of which this is —finally— a product.