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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 [...]

The extent to which inclusive neoliberalism highlights community-based responses to the structural problems of poverty and exclusion is explored in the context of the World Bank-funded Northern Uganda Social Action Fund. Advocates of the responses believe that marginalized citizens get empowerment, while critics deem the responses as a negation of responsibility by development trustees.

The position of local governments' ability for household consumption and school enrolment in Uganda is examined to extensively probe how decentralization relates to welfare. Household survey data is analyzed to verify that both household consumption and school enrolment are positively connected with the level of capacity of district government.

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 [...]

The evaluation of the demographic, biological, and behavioral factors that are responsible for the spread of recent HIV infections in Uganda is presented. The results indicate that several risk factors were responsible for the spread of HIV infections in Uganda.

A study to access the level of exposures to war-related violence and prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression symptoms in northern Uganda was conducted. Results show that there was a high prevalence for symptoms of PTSD and depression in a conflict zone.

The effect of locally feasible interventions on depression and anxiety among adolescent survivors of war and displacement in northern Uganda was studied. Results revealed that both the interventions were locally feasible.

Over the past three decades, the once-adaptive practice of 'taking by force' (cattle raiding) by pastoralist tribes in Northern Uganda has been transformed into a violent, ongoing intractable conflict within the tribes that threatens to destroy the Karimojong people and their way of life. This article suggests that in addition to the typical sources of intractable conflict, a massive influx of automatic weapons not only created instability in the community but also led to a shift in cultural norms. Several cultural norms now perpetuate the conflict, leading to increased intractability. Keywords: intractable conflict; sources of conflict; Karimojong; pastoralism; cattle raiding

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.

It is estimated that two million of Uganda's children today are orphaned primarily due to AIDS. While recognising the immense impact of HIV/AIDS on the present orphan problem, this article calls for a broader historic and cultural contextualisation to reach an understanding of the vastness of the orphan challenge. The study on which the article is based was carried out among the Langi in Lira District, northern Uganda, with a prime focus on the situation of orphans within the extended family system. The data were collected through ethnographic fieldwork (8 months); in-depth interviews with community leaders (21), heads of households (45) and orphans (35); through focus group discussions (5) with adult men and women caring for orphans, community leaders and with orphans; and also through documentary review. A survey was conducted in 402 households. The findings reveal a transition over the past 30 years from a situation dominated by 'purposeful' voluntary exchange of non-orphaned children to one dominated by 'crisis fostering' of orphans. Sixty-three percent of the households caring for orphans were found to be no longer headed by resourceful paternal kin in a manner deemed culturally appropriate by the patrilineal Langi society, but rather by marginalised widows, grandmothers or other single women receiving little support from the paternal clan. This transition is partly linked to an abrupt discontinuation of the Langi 'widow inheritance' (laku) practice. It is argued that the consequential transformations in fostering practices in northern Uganda must be historically situated through a focus on the effects of armed conflicts and uprooting of the local pastoral and cotton-based economy, which have occurred since the late 1970s. These processes jointly produced dramatic economic marginalisation with highly disturbing consequences for orphans and their caretakers. Keywords: Uganda; Langi; Orphans; Transformations; Widows; HIV/AIDS

Government's attitude towards the nineteen year old complex War between the rebels of the Lord Resistance Army (LRA) and the Uganda Peoples Defense Force (UPDF) is quiet ambiguous, funded by the Unites states for defense and international, seems to favor some people. The real war there is, to survive, with alarming emergence of suicide, high alcoholism, growing AIDS rate, aid supplies not reaching the needy, and children in particular exposed to all the uncertainties seem to have no future.

Psychological factors associated with deliberate self-harm (DSH) as seen in an African population in Uganda are described. A case-control study design was employed in which a Luganda version (predominant language in the study area) of the modified European Parasuicide Interview Schedule I (EPSIS I) was used to collect data. The controls were patients admitted to the participating hospitals for non-recurrent medical conditions. Hopelessness, global psychological distress, and state anger, but not depression, were significantly associated with DSH after controlling for other factors. Both depression and hopelessness were significantly associated with suicidal intent independent of each other. Differences were observed on the psychological factors associated with suicidal intent in the different age/sex groups and in the depressed/nondepressed group. Interventions for DSH in this population should include treatments for both depression and hopelessness. This study further raises questions about the universality of the structural relationship among depression, hopelessness, and suicidality.

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 reports findings from a study conducted among 212 private motorbike-taxi riders, locally called bodabodamen, from two study sites--a slum area and the urban center of Masaka town. Qualitative and quantitative methods were triangulated; a questionnaire, focus group discussions, in-depth interviews, case studies, and interactive workshops were all used. There were high levels of awareness of HIV, much more than sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), because many participants had closely experienced HIV/AIDS. Knowledge about sexual health contained several misconceptions, misinformation, and myths rooted in both the historical and contemporary social cultural context. Due to high illiteracy levels, bodabodamen cannot access many standard health education materials issued by government and private health organizations through the print and electronic media, as well as those published in languages other than the local vernacular. These (and possibly other) disadvantaged groups remain at risk of HIV and STDs. Especial efforts need to be made to provide appropriate health education. KEY WORDS: sexuality information; risk perceptions; masculinity.

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.

Little is known about the background of commercial sex workers in Africa. This study investigated how women in a trading town on the trans-Africa highway in southwest Uganda become involved in commercial sex work, which factors contribute to their economic success or lack of success, and what effect life trajectories and economic success have on negotiating power and risk behaviour. Over the course of two years detailed life histories of 34 women were collected through recording open, in-depth interviews, the collection of sexual and income and expenditure diaries, visits to the women's native villages, and participant observation. The women share similar disadvantaged backgrounds and this has played a role in their move into commercial sex. They have divergent experiences, however, in their utilisation of opportunities and in the level of success they achieve. They have developed different life styles and a variety of ways of dealing with sexual relationships. Three groups of women were identified: (1) women who work in the back-street bars, have no capital of their own and are almost entirely dependent on selling sex for their livelihood; (2) waitresses in the bars along the main road who engage in a more institutionalised kind of commercial sex, often mediated by middlemen and (3) the more successful entrepreneurs who earn money from their own bars as well as from commercial sex. The three groups had different risk profiles. Due partly to their financial independence from men, women in the latter group have taken control of sexual relationships and can negotiate good sexual deals for themselves, both financially and in terms of safe sex. The poorer women were more vulnerable and less able to negotiate safer sex. A disadvantaged background and restricted access to economic resources are the major reasons for women gravitating to commercial sex work, Various aspects of personality play a role in utilising income from commercial sex to set up an economic basis that then makes the selling of sex unnecessary. This has implications for interventions, and part of the longer-term solution should lie in improving the economic position of women vis-a-vis men. Keywords: Commercial sex work; Life histories; Uganda; Survival strategies; Risks; HIV/AIDS

The authors present an instrument for measuring social capital and apply it to analyzing social norms prevalent in Ghana and Uganda. Regression analyses and reliability measures supporting the instrument's validity measures are included.

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 [...]

In order to understand factors influencing choice of delivery sites in Rakai district of south-western Uganda, eight focus group discussions based on the Attitudes-Social influence-Self efficacy model were held with 32 women and 32 men. Semi-structured interviews were also held with 211 women from 21 random cluster samples who had a delivery in the previous 12 months (from 2 June 1997). Forty four percent of the sample delivered at home, 17% at traditional birth attendant's (TBA) place, 32% at public health units, and 7% at private clinics. Among the factors influencing choice of delivery site were: access to maternity services; social influence from the spouse, other relatives, TBAs and health workers; self-efficacy; habit (previous experience) and the concept of normal versus abnormal pregnancy. Attitudinal beliefs towards various delivery sites were well understood and articulated. Attendance of ante-natal care may discourage delivery in health units if the mothers are told that the pregnancy is normal. In order to make delivery safer, there is need to improve access to maternity services, train TBAs and equip them with delivery kits, change mother's self-efficacy beliefs, and involve spouses in education about safe delivery.

It is questioned whether there is a difference between African feminism and western feminism, and whether that silent African feminism is particular to all African nations. In 1986, the government of Uganda promised to support the women's rights issue and take gender inequality by the horns, resulting in the October 1995 New National Constitution. However, the empowerment of women in Uganda is restricted by traditional customs that support male domination.

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 Ugandan media's portrayal of women perpetuates gender inequality and inhibits the country's development process. Women in Uganda are rarely recognized by the media and when they receive media attention, the portrayals are largely negative. Women continue to be viewed as male property whose sole role is the care of family or husband's needs. The media can help correct Uganda's many gender imbalances through in-depth coverage of women's issues and portrayals of women as independent and intelligent members of society.

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.

An African American woman narrates her experiences in Rwanda and Uganda, which she visited as part of a USAID project on library automation in 1991. Rwanda has many brave people committed to the preservation of their culture, but also presents contrasts between poverty and wealth. The abundance of natural resources enables the people of Uganda to maintain a higher level of living. The devastation of Uganda began with the war that was started by Idi Amin during the 1960s and the 1970s. In both countries, war, poverty and political problems have caused books to become endangered species.