Decolonising State & Society in Uganda: The Politics of Knowledge & Public Life

Key book on the debates surrounding the knowledge economy and decolonialization of African Studies, that brings the subject up to date for the 21st century.

Decolonization of knowledge has become a major issue in African Studies in recent years, brought to the fore by social movements such as #RhodesMustFall and #BlackLivesMatter. This timely book explores the politics and disputed character of knowledge production in colonial and postcolonial Uganda, where efforts to generate forms of knowledge and solidarity that transcend colonial epistemologies draw on long histories of resistance and refusal. Bringing together scholars from Africa, Europe and North America, the contributors in this volume analyse how knowledge has been created, mobilized, and contested across a wide range of Ugandan contexts. In so doing, they reveal how Ugandans have built, disputed, and reimagined institutions of authority and knowledge production in ways that disrupt the colonial frames that continue to shape scholarly analyses and state structures. From the politics of language and gender in Bakiga naming practices to ways of knowing among the Acholi, the hampering of critical scholarship by militarism and authoritarianism, and debates over the names of streets, lakes, mountains, and other public spaces, this book shows how scholars and a wide range of Ugandan activists are reimagining the politics of knowledge in Ugandan public life.

KATHERINE BRUCE-LOCKHART is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Waterloo.

JONATHON L. EARLE is the Marlene and David Grissom Professor of Social Studies at Centre College and co-author of Contesting Catholics: Benedicto Kiwanuka and the Birth of Postcolonial Uganda.

NAKANYIKE B. MUSISI is an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto.

EDGAR C. TAYLOR is a Lecturer in the Department of History, Archaeology and Heritage Studies at Makerere University.

Tushabe wa Tushabe is Associate Professor in Department of Human Sexuality Studies, Widener University.