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Ghosts in the Academy: Historians and Historical Consciousness in the Making of Modern Uganda

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 April 2014

Richard J. Reid
Richard J. Reid*
Affiliation:
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
*
R.J.Reid@soas.ac.uk
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Abstract

The public and professional significance of precolonial History as a discipline has declined markedly across much of sub-Saharan Africa over the last forty years: History has been both demonized—depicted as deeply dangerous and the source of savagery and instability—and portrayed as irrelevant when set alongside the needs for economic modernization and “development.” This paper explores this trend in the context of Uganda, with a particular focus on the kingdom of Buganda, chosen for its particularly rich oral and literary heritage and the thematic opportunities offered by its complex and troubled twentieth century. The paper aims to explore how “the past”—with a focus on the precolonial era—has been understood there in several distinct periods. These include the era of imperial partition and the formation of the Uganda Protectorate between the 1880s and the 1910s; competition for political space within colonial society to the 1950s; decolonization and the struggle to create new nationhood in the mid-twentieth century; and political crises and partial recovery since the 1970s. Ultimately, the paper seeks to assess the role of History in a modern African society vis-à-vis the developmental agendas and notions of economic growth against which African “progress” and prospects for “stability” are currently measured.

Type
Research Article
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 56 , Issue 2 , April 2014 , pp. 351 - 380
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 2014 

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References

1 I have followed Richard Evans’ convention in using the uppercase “History” (or “Historical consciousness”) to denote the subject, and “history” to indicate the past; Evans, R. J., Cosmopolitan Islanders: British Historians and the European Continent (Cambridge, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, xiv.

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19 The most commonly used English translation is Kiwanuka, M.S.M.'s The Kings of Buganda (Nairobi, 1971).Google Scholar

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63 Rowe, “Myth,” 26–27.

64 For recent pioneering work on Historical writing in this period, see Jonathan Earle, “Political Theologies in Late Colonial Buganda,” PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 2012.

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66 Ibid., 245–46.

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68 Again, see Earle, “Political Theologies,” for insights into the various adaptations of monarchical history during this critical “moment.”

69 See also Thompson, G., Governing Uganda: British Colonial Rule and Its Legacy (Kampala, 2003)Google Scholar.

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93 Some of the following section is based on informal discussions with History Department staff at Makerere University and at Kyambogo University, in Kampala, between 2010 and 2012. These meetings were part of my preliminary work for my larger Leverhulme-funded project. Anonymity is required to protect sources.

94 Informal interviews at Makerere University, June 2011 and Aug. 2012.

95 See, for example, Ephraim Kamuhangire, “Don't Destroy the Museum,” New Vision (Kampala), 10 Mar. 2011.

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100 Museveni, Sowing the Mustard Seed, 188.

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