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This paper studies the birth and development of women's and gender studies in Uganda. i conducted this research as part of a doctoral thesis on the history of women's and gender studies in the Global South. Using feminist and standpoint theories, much of the research includes oral histories gathered over the course of three years of field work in Uganda. From the moment i heard my professor say, 'i learned to be a feminist from Ugandan women,' i knew that i wanted to understand the history of women's and gender studies in the country. in sub-Saharan Africa, the discipline of women's and gender studies has made dramatic inroads into the academy through the development of degree-granting undergraduate and graduate programs, the creation of research centers and institutes, and the growth of African feminist theory. Using Uganda as a case study, we can look to the oldest program of its kind in Africa to trace the birth of the discipline on the continent. The history of women's and gender studies in Uganda speaks to ways in which the discipline in the Global South has, since its inception, been entrenched in transnational feminism and an intersectional curriculum rooted in indigenous feminisms. Keywords: Women's Studies, Gender Studies, Global South Feminism, African Feminism, women in Uganda, Uganda, introduction Within two hours of my arrival in Kampala, Uganda i became keenly aware of three quintessential elements of the city: red clay, pineapple, and gender studies. What do dirt, [...]

When David Bahati introduced the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda's Parliament in 2009, the Western world descended upon the country in a frenzy, attempting to understand Uganda's intolerance of gay people. [...]

The recent backlash against homosexuality in Uganda, culminating in the introduction of the 2009 Anti-Homosexuality Bill, has focused tremendous attention on the role religious activists have played in shaping Ugandan attitudes about sexuality. Drawing on long-term fieldwork among the Ugandan born-again Christians at the center of this controversy, I argue that anti-homosexual rhetoric is animated by something more than a parroting of American homophobia. Rather, it reflects a tension between two divergent frameworks for ethical personhood in Uganda, one related to the Ganda value of ekitiibwa or 'respect/honor,' and the other based in a discourse of rights, autonomy, and 'freedom.' The born-again rejection of a rights-based discourse is analyzed in relation to broader anxieties generated by a neoliberal emphasis on the autonomous, 'empowered' individual during a period of growing inequality and economic and political dissatisfaction in Uganda. [Keywords: Homosexuality, Christianity, human rights, personhood, Uganda, Africa, ekitiibwa] [Palavras chave: Homossexualidade, Cristianismo, direitos humanos, pessoalidade, Uganda, Africa], Over the past decade, the subject of homosexuality has been pushed to the fore of public consciousness in Uganda's capital, Kampala. Street demonstrations in support of the 'African family' have [...]

Abstract: In this article I explore links between fieldwork experience and different conceptions of time as they are encountered in what I term 'episodic fieldwork'. I use 'episodic' to emphasize [...]

Introduction Uganda has been at the center of the AIDS epidemic in Africa. This fact has shaped the role that Christianity, and especially the growing Pentecostal movement, have assumed in [...], In Kampala, Pentecostal churches have been filling the public space since 1986. The paper focuses on the transformation that Pentecostal churches have been experiencing in Uganda, with an increasing involvement in society. I discuss interactions between this process and changes in national strategies regarding HIV and AIDS prevention, and show how the concept of 'salvation' assumes renewed meanings in this context. I analyze young people's involvement in religious campaigns against AIDS, and the fact that this is linked to the Pentecostal discourse of the 'break with the past,' which in Uganda has found a new dimension in the rhetoric of a 'Joseph Generation,' charged with building a Christian country and opposed to the fathers' generation.

The processes of transitional justice and social reconstruction aim to repair the social elements of a society. Countries devise mechanisms for handling past and current human rights violations. The manner in which these kinds of mechanisms have been used in addressing such crimes as well as the appropriate order in which these mechanisms should be used is considered here. A myriad of mechanisms have been applied to the case of Uganda and are examined., Introduction The processes of transitional justice and social reconstruction aim, broadly, to repair the social elements of a society. As I have written elsewhere, "transitional justice is engaged in helping [...]

Abstract In Uganda, various stake holders including the government, NGOs, and women activists have undeniably played important roles in the combat for gender equality in primary education. However, there is [...]

Research has shown that married women's greatest risk for HIV infection is their husbands' extramarital sexual activities. Using 6 months of ethnographic research in southeastern Uganda, I examined how the social and economic contexts surrounding men's extramarital sexuality and the dynamics of marriage put men and women at risk for HIV infection. I found that Uganda's HIV prevention messages may be inadvertently contributing to increased difficulty in acknowledging HIV risk and to newer forms of sexual secrecy and that structural determinants, including persistent poverty, intersect with gender inequalities to shape marital risk. After examining a community effort to regulate men's sexuality, I suggest that HIV prevention strategies should focus more on endogenous forms of risk reduction while simultaneously addressing structural factors that facilitate opportunities for men's extramarital sex.

ABSTRACT In Eastern Uganda, a married woman should be buried at her husband's home, raising questions such as: which husband? were they really married? These questions become urgent when a [...]

This article contextualizes Ugandan urban-rural relations through urban children's knowledge, imaginations, and experiences, which are affected by the present sociohistoric moment in Uganda. Influenced by urban-rural migration, changing notions of family and kinship, and the national government's prolific 'development-through-education' campaign, urban schoolchildren imagine 'the village' both as an integral imaginary space of ethnic identity origination and a location for fulfillment of national citizenship through development.

ABSTRACT Much of the literature on women and land tenure in Africa has viewed the introduction of land titling, registration, and the privatization of land under colonialism and after independence [...]

This article reviews the challenges and opportunities posed by the rapid growth of private universities in Uganda since 1988 and tries to identify areas of the private university system in which the state can play a positive role. It argues that the state should not leave the operation of the system entirely to market forces but should positively regulate their activities without control. Seven challenges are identified. These include the management challenge, the financing of these institutions, meeting the ever increasing demand for higher education, the devising of relevant curricula, addressing the dearth of qualified academic staff, the formation of a comprehensive national higher education policy, and the maintenance of institutional autonomy tempered by accountability of each of these new university institutions. At the same time, the article identifies a number of opportunities that these institutions could take advantage of. These include the positive economic development the country has been registering for the last decade and half, the resilience of the lower educational system, the social need for higher education, the policy of Universal Primary Education (UPE), the interest of the current government in education development, and the positive international attitude toward Uganda.

There is a dialectic relationship between baakisimba and gender constructions among the Baganda people of Uganda. (1) On the one hand, baakisimba--the term denotes a drum, a music genre, and [...]

Research in different disciplines has sparked curiosity about the relationship between social capital, economic development, and good government (Coleman, 1991; Putnam, 1993). Roughly stated, the theories suggest that where people [...]

ROUX springs forward and places himself before the marchers, his back to them, still with fettered arms. When will you learn to see When will you learn to take sides(1) [...]

The long march: The night commuters walk up to five miles in their quest for shelter. The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), which typically strikes at dusk or dawn, has abducted [...]

This article describes the transformation of the agricultural economy that took place as a result of the disintegration of the state provision of marketing in Uganda in the 1970s and 1980s. In this context, the article examines how the commercialization of food crops is constructing new relations of gender within agricultural production. In the transformation caused by the commercialization of food crops, men appeared to have gained total control over food production, causing the gender relations to move from a complementary to a patriarchal system. Closer examination, however, reveals an increased significance of marital bargaining and a movement from established gender roles to more negotiable relationships. The evidence underscores the continued significance of differentiated socioeconomic status to women's bargaining potential in gender relations.

Women's studies in Uganda developed due to the Ugandan women's movements and the efforts of NGOs. The women's studies department at Makerere University, which was inaugurated in 1991, has revitalized university education by sensitizing it to gender issues. However, women's studies can make a greater impact on Ugandan society only if it is integrated into the curricula of schools and institutions of higher learning apart from Makerere University. Further, gender studies should be made available to all those concerned with policy-making and social development.

Oral and written histories of the encounter between Western medicine and Ugandan culture during British colonialism are analyzed. Ugandan ideas about medicine and its application influenced their responses to Western medicine as well as the European depiction of medical power. For example, anesthesia and fumigants were viewed as weapons of colonial domination. Ugandan medicine is practiced on the skin, and injections were magical invasions of the skin that could change the body.

Women's organizations in Uganda and Tanzania suggest ways of uniting in societies that are increasingly divided along sectarian lines. Women from different backgrounds are motivated by the common goal of social inclusion. Besides, economic necessity has made women the primary wage-earners in many households. These developments have prompted women to seek ways of utilizing their strength without relying on the state. Formal and informal women's organizations suggest possibilities for institutional reform. The study also examines the concept of civil society in a non-Western context.

A comparison of written and printed records, interviews, tape recordings and newspaper reports on socio-religious movements reveals the need to use different approaches in analyzing socio-religious rural movements of the past and the present. Few incidents in Mexico in 1890 and in Uganda in the late 1980s involve claims by young women to possess divine power and heavenly mandate to lead a social revolution.

Studies on Kenyan and Ugandan populations reveal that absence of male circumcision increases the risk of genital ulcer disease and HIV/AIDS. The abnormally large male surplus urban societies and their network with prostitutes provide a core group for AIDS spreading. The reduced commercial sex in rural areas reflects traditional sexual confinement to marriage and reduced incidence of commercial sex. The disease spreads within the core community rather than outside the group.

In northern Uganda, physical and structural violence (political repression, economic inequality, and gender-based discrimination) increase vulnerability to HIV infection. In settings of war, traditional HIV prevention that solely promotes risk avoidance and risk reduction and assumes the existence of personal choice inadequately addresses the realities of HIV transmission. The design of HIV prevention strategies in northern Uganda must recognize how HIV transmission occurs and the factors that put people at risk for infection. A human rights approach provides a viable model for achieving this aim.

This study uses survey and focus-group data from the 1995--96 Negotiating Reproductive Outcomes study in Uganda to describe the nature of the decision to stop childbearing and to question the [...]

The principal aim of this study of adolescents in Mbale District, Uganda, is to provide program-related information about their behavior, motivations, and perceptions of risk with regard to pregnancy and [...]