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Nordic Journal of African Studies
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This is an Open Access Journal

Open Access journal
ISSN (Online) 1459-9465
Published by Nordic Africa Research Network

[1 journal]

At the Intersection of Instrumentalism, Understanding, and Critique
- Authors: Henni Alava, Tiina Kontinen
  Pages: 298 - 308
  Abstract: This special issue showcases four analyses of lived citizenship in Uganda – a country previously known as a donor darling but, recently, better known for its steady slide towards authoritarian rule (Ssentongo 2021, Tapscott 2021, Wilkins et. al. 2021, Wiegratz et. al. 2018). Individually, the articles draw on and contribute to diverse strands of debate within the field of citizenship studies. As a collection, however, they serve to illustrate a space characterized by three different knowledge interests in development-related research on African societies. A central contention is that the very notion of ‘development-related research’ requires definition; as a field, it is constituted and its boundaries are defined by different actors’ considerations of what is relevant for either the policy, practice, critique, or the very definition of ‘development’. When conducted on societies in Africa, it intersects with African studies and anthropological contributions.
  PubDate: 2022-12-12
  DOI: 10.53228/njas.v31i4.960
  Issue No: Vol. 31, No. 4 (2022)
Women’s Multifaceted Citizenship
- Authors: Laura Del Castillo Munera, Alice Ndidde
  Pages: 309 - 328
  Abstract: This article analyses manifestations of women’s citizenship in diverse spaces of everyday participation in the rural districts of Kiboga and Namutumba in Uganda. Building on citizenship studies scholarship, we propose the notion of multifaceted citizenship, which ‘takes place’ in the same spaces of participation as processes of identity formation and belonging. Thus, our article also explores how identities and belonging manifest in spaces of participation. Drawing on content analysis of 50 qualitative interviews, we begin by investigating the spaces of participation that are experienced as meaningful by women. We then classify identities into five main categories: active resident, member, role model, leader, and wife. Finally, we identify two categories of belonging: personal and community belonging. In conclusion, we suggest that exploring citizenship through women’s own experiences in spaces of meaningful participation provides a fruitful approach to understanding the dynamics of gendered citizenship at the grassroots level.
  PubDate: 2022-12-12
  DOI: 10.53228/njas.v31i4.961
  Issue No: Vol. 31, No. 4 (2022)
Exploring Obutyamye as Material Citizenship in Busoga Subregion, Uganda
- Authors: Karembe Ahimbisibwe
  Pages: 329 - 349
  Abstract: This article explores how being a citizen is inexorably bound up with the resources individuals own and deploy to support livelihoods in the rural locations of postcolonial states. Drawing on the works of Kabeer (2006) and Baglioni (2016), the article zooms in on how citizenship is manifestly and inescapably material in the Busoga subregion of eastern Uganda. Data for the article were collected using qualitative methods among beneficiaries of antipoverty programmes implemented by Action for Development (ACFODE), a national non-governmental organization (NGO). Findings show that, locally, citizenship is understood as obutyamye, connoting an (un) equal experience of being in, for and with the community based on what one owns. ACFODE interventions that resonate with and address the material needs of the community have crucial implications for the localised practice of citizenship. What obutyamye portends for community belonging is discussed with a focus on how NGO antipoverty initiatives both challenge and reproduce local power asymmetries related to gender and resource ownership. In conclusion, the article highlights the crucial role NGOs’ antipoverty efforts play in strengthening people’s material well-being and, potentially, their citizenship status and agency at the small scale.
  PubDate: 2022-12-12
  DOI: 10.53228/njas.v31i4.962
  Issue No: Vol. 31, No. 4 (2022)
NGO Legitimacy as a Continuous Negotiation Process
- Authors: Tiina Kontinen, Twine Bananuka
  Pages: 350 - 373
  Abstract: The article draws on and contributes to debates on the legitimacy of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) engaged in development, defining organizational legitimacy as a social construct that is continually negotiated in relationships with diverse audiences. To explore the negotiated nature of NGO legitimacy, the article examines the efforts of a Ugandan NGO, Kabarole Research and Resource Centre (KRC), to foster citizens’ capacities in rural communities in the western part of the country. Drawing on interviews and participant observation, we scrutinize the ways in which KRC balances between different and even contrasting legitimacy expectations stemming from three types of encounters significant to the NGO: those with international collaborators, community members, and local government. We show how international collaborators prioritize support for active citizenship, manifested in mobilizing to claim rights and accountability; village residents emphasize good citizenship, comprising a secure livelihood and community contributions; and local government endorses citizenship characterized by fulfilling obligations. The NGO must balance between those expectations to secure funding, fulfil their empowerment mission, and maintain their ability to act without restrictions. In conclusion, the article argues for a notion of NGO legitimacy as a state of continual negotiation, wherein the specificities of significant audiences and the nature of the negotiations vary, based on the activities and contexts of any particular development NGO.
  PubDate: 2022-12-12
  DOI: 10.53228/njas.v31i4.963
  Issue No: Vol. 31, No. 4 (2022)
Tiny Citizenship, Twisted Politics, and Christian Love in a Ugandan Church
Choir
- Authors: Henni Alava
  Pages: 374 - 401
  Abstract: In 1977, the Archbishop of the Church of Uganda, Janani Luwum, was killed under orders from President Idi Amin following his public criticism of Amin’s reign of terror. This article offers an ethnographic case study of a choir named in Luwum’s honour to extend existing research on the interrelations of Christianity, citizenship, and politics in contemporary Uganda. To do so, I draw a number of conceptual tools – tiny citizenship, authentic citizenship, twisted politics, and love – from work by and referencing Hannah Arendt, James Baldwin, and Gary Alan Fine. First, analyzing the choir’s participation in the national commemoration of Janani Luwum Day at Uganda’s State House in 2021, I argue that the possibility of authentic citizenship in the Ugandan national public is constrained by twisted politics. At the State House, the Church of Uganda effectively dismissed Luwum’s activist legacy and consolidated its clientelist relationship with the increasingly authoritarian NRM state, thus contributing to the further shrinking of political space in Uganda. Second, I analyze the Janani Luwum Choir’s daily practices, and the ideals and rhetorics nurtured at them, as an example of a tiny public. I argue that the tiny citizenship fostered by the choir is compatible with the expectations the Ugandan state has of its citizens. Yet in a national, regional, and church context marked by long-term conflict, exclusionary politics, and low levels of trust, the choir also stands out. As a space characterized by love, care, egalitarianism, and the maintenance of harmony, it offers its members a vision and experience of a different world.
  PubDate: 2022-12-12
  DOI: 10.53228/njas.v31i4.964
  Issue No: Vol. 31, No. 4 (2022)