Abstract
This paper investigates the linkages between artistic practices and civil society dynamics in Uganda. While it briefly touches upon modern practices, it focuses on “traditional” art forms. Preliminary findings indicate that traditional art forms often negotiate social and cultural dimensions. In addition, and although they may be considered of little value with regard to economic growth, artistic and project leaders consider them significant for the economic development of Uganda. The literature further indicates a scarcity of studies investigating forms of traditional art and their linkages to empowerment and development, often funded by international actors. Findings suggest that the discourse on local traditional visual culture production is dominated by the notions of economic development, which may be reinforced through the way these art products are promoted and used today in Uganda’s civil society.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Name changed.
- 2.
Today there are eight universities, and a few academies, that offer art programs: Kyambogo University; Nkumba University; The East African International University; St. Lawrence University; Kampala University; Buganda Royal University; Uganda Christian University, Mukono University and Ndejje University.
- 3.
The “Masters” were: Bili Bidjocka (Cameroun), Godfried Donkor (Ghana/UK), Abdoulaye Konate (Mali), Myriam Mihindou (Gabon), Radenko Milak (Bosnia Herzegovina), Aida Muluneh (Ethiopia), Pascale Marthine Tayou (Cameroun).
- 4.
KLA ART is a biennial art festival that was inaugurated in 2014, after a dispute among the organizers of the KAB. For further information, see also Garrido Castellano (2018). The boda-moment. Positioning socially engaged art in contemporary Uganda.
- 5.
Both, KLA ART (Kampala Art Festival) and KAB (Kampala Art Biennale) are biennales that were initiated 2012 and 2014, respectively. KLA ART in particular seeks to find new and alternative approaches to approach the general urban public, e. g. through establishing studio spaces in urban centers, or through the boda boda project. For more details, see Peters-Klaphake (2015).
- 6.
In 1996, Wells became involved with rural craftspeople in KwaZulu-Natal, and quickly discovered that the women’s beadwork was a way of communicating intimate and emotional matters (hlonipha). Bead-work and the making of dolls with beads is understood as a symbol of Zulu culture. Among others, it was “meant to transmit love messages secretly“ (Wells 2016, p. 131) and concludingly was identified as most suitable for the Siyazama project (Wells 2016).
- 7.
Kwazulu-Natal Land, SA, is where the Siyazama-project, developed by Kate Wells, was first implemented. For further details see also Wells 2012.
- 8.
All quotes in this article have been edited for clarity.
- 9.
Name changed.
- 10.
The England-Africa Partnership is a program of the British government’s Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills.
- 11.
The National Association of Women Organizations Uganda defined “marginalized” women to be women who “did not have an opportunity to enrol, stay and complete formal education because her society does not value girlchild education or discriminates girls and women with disabilities and those living with HIV/AIDS, [women] without access to land and finances … [and] mother[s] and her children” NAWOU (2017).
- 12.
The Baganda are an ethnic group from central-southern Uganda, which includes the urban centers Kampala and Entebbe.
- 13.
See also Protte, this volume.
References
Buttigieg, Joseph A. 1995. Gramsci on Civil Society. boundary 2(22): 1–32.
Chikukwa, Raphael, Katharina Hoffmann, Ingmar Lähnemann, Katrin Peters-Klaphake, and Lydia Potts. 2016. Kabbo ka Muwala – The Girl’s Basket: Migration and Mobility in Contemporary Southern and Eastern Africa. Berlin: Revolver Publishing.
Clarke, Adele. 2007. Situational Analysis – Grounded Theory after the Postmodern Turn. Thousand Oaks: SAGE.
Clarke, Adele, Carrie Friese, and Rachel Washburn. 2018. Situational Analysis – Grounded Theory after the Interpretative Turn. Thousand Oaks: SAGE.
DAPU. 2019. Disability Art Project Uganda: About us. http://www.freetocharities.org.uk/dapu/aboutus.html. Accessed: 31 October 2019.
Dikovitskaya, Margaret, ed. 2005. Visual Culture: The Study of the Visual After the Cultural Turn. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press.
Edwards, Michael. 2011. Introduction: Civil society and the geometry of human relations. In The Oxford handbook of civil society, Michael Edwards ed., 3–14, 1st edn. New York: Oxford University Press.
Engelstad, Fredrik. 2003. Comparative studies of culture and power. Amsterdam: Elsevier JAI.
Fonseca, Marco. 2016. Gramsci’s Critique of Civil Society. Routledge.
Garrido Castellano, Carlos. 2018. The Boda Moment: Positioning Socially Engaged Art in Contemporary Uganda. FIELD. Journal of Socially Engaged Art Criticism 10. http://field-journal.com/issue-10/the-boda-moment-positioning-socially-engaged-art-in-contemporary-uganda. Accessed: 31 August 2020.
Government of Uganda. 2007. Uganda Vision 2040 – A Transformed Ugandan Society from a Peasant to a Modern and Prosperous Country within 30 years. https://www.greengrowthknowledge.org/sites/default/files/downloads/policy-database/UGANDA%29%20Vision%202040.pdf. Accessed: 28 July 2021.
Gramsci, Antonio. 1999. Selections from Prison Notebooks. Essential Classics in Politics. London: Elec Book Company.
Guille, Jackie. 2012. Design, health and community: transferring the Siyazama model to Uganda. In Siyazama: Art, AIDS and education in South Africa, Kate Wells ed., 73–79. Scottsville, South Africa: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press.
Helfferich, Cornelia. 2019. Leitfaden- und Experteninterviews. In Handbuch Methoden der empirischen Sozialforschung, 2nd edn., Nina Baur and Jörg Blasius eds., 669–686. Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden.
KAB18. 2018. Curatorial Concept: “The Studio”. http://kampalabiennale.org/the-studio-concept/. Accessed: 28 July 2021.
Kasozi, Dorah. 2019. Paper Beads on the Move: Mobilizing Trajectories and Subjectivities to Shape Contemporary Art in Uganda. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/afar_a_00459. Accessed: 2 November 2019.
Kayamba, Willam K., and Philip Kwesiga. 2016. The role of pottery production in development: A case study of the Ankole region in Western Uganda. Net Journal of Social Sciences 4(4): 81–90.
Kayamba, Willam K., and Philip Kwesiga. 2017. Gender and traditional pottery practice in Ankole region, western Uganda. Net Journal of Social Sciences 5(3): 42–54.
Kyeyune, George. 2004. A century of modern art in Uganda. Dissertation, University of London, London.
Koeune, Esther. 1937. Our African schools. In Uganda Teachers Journal, 4. Quoted from: Kyeyune, George. 2004. Art in Uganda in the twentieth century. University of London (unpublished dissertation)
Lamont, Michele, and Laurent Thévenot. 2000. Rethinking Comparative Cultural Sociology: Repertoires of Evaluation in France and the United States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mbembe, Achille. 2001. On the Postcolony. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Nabulime, Lilian, and Cheryl McEwan. 2011. Art as social practice: transforming lives using sculpture in HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention in Uganda. cultural geographies 18(3): 275–296. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474010377548.
Nabulime, Lilian M., and Cheryl McEwan. 2014. Using art and everyday objects to fight HIV/AIDS in Uganda. Development in Practice 24(2): 272–285. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/09614524.2014.884539.
Nakazibwe, Venny. 2005. Bark-cloth of the Baganda people of southern Uganda. A record of continuity and change from the late eighteenth century to the early twenty-first century. Dissertation.
Nakazibwe, Venny. 2010. An assessment of the status of arts’ education in Uganda. http://education.go.ug/files/downloads/REPORT%20ON%20ARTS%20EDUACTION.pdf. Accessed: 30 October 2019.
Namakula, Elizabeth. 2014. Mapping Kampala with KLA ART 014. Start Journal 14. https://startjournal.org/2014/11/mapping-kampala-with-kla-art-014/. Accessed: 31 August 2020.
NAWOU. 2017. NAWOU Handmade. http://nawouganda.ug/our-programmes/economic-empowerment/the-marketing-department/. Accessed: 11 May 2019.
Obadare, Ebenezer. 2011. Civil society in sub-Saharan Africa. In The Oxford handbook of civil society, Michael Edwards ed., 183–194, 1st edn. New York: Oxford University Press.
Pinther, Kerstin, and Alexandra Weigand eds. 2018. Flow of Forms / Forms of Flow: Design Histories between Africa and Europe. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag.
Sarr, Felwine, and Benedicte Savoy. 2018. The restitution of African cultural heritage. Towards a new relational Ethics. http://restitutionreport2018.com/sarr_savoy_en.pdf. Accessed: 28 July 2021.
Siegenthaler, Fiona. 2018. Co-optation as an imaginative act: art-related initiatives and social space in Kampala. Social Dynamics 44(3): 528–546. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/02533952.2018.1507544.
Stupples, Polly T. 2011. Breaking the frame: art in international development. Dissertation, Massey University, Turitea, New Zealand.
Strauss, Anselm, and Barney Glaser. 1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory – strategies for qualitative research. Chicago: Aldine.
Trowell, Margaret. 1936. Suggestions for the treatment of handwork in the training of teachers for work in Africa. In Oversea Education 7(2): 78–84.
Tumusiime, Amanda Evassy. 2012. Art and gender. Imag(in)ing the new woman in contemporary Ugandan art. Dissertation. University of South Africa, Pretoria. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/9036. Accessed: 31 August 2020.
Wachsmann, K. P., and Margaret Trowell. 1953. Tribal crafts of Uganda. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wells, Kate, Marsha Macdowell, C. Kurt Dewhurst, Marit Dewhurst eds. 2012. Siyazama: Art, AIDS and education in South Africa. University of KwaZulu-Natal Press.
Wells, Kate. 2016. Siyazama in South Africa: Zulu beadwork, HIV/AIDS, and the consequences of culture. In Oxford Textbook of Creative Arts, Health, and Wellbeing: International Perspectives on Practice, Policy and Research, Stephen Clift and Paul M. Camic eds. 129–133. Oxford University Press
White, Mike. 2009. Arts Development in Community Health: A Social Tonic. Radcliffe Pub.
Wolukau-Wanambwa, Emma. 2014. Margaret Trowell’s School of Art. A Case Study in Colonial Subject Formation. In Wahrnehmung, Erfahrung, Experiment, Wissen: Objektivität und Subjektivität in den Künsten und den Wissenschaften, Susanne Stemmler ed. 1st edn. Zürich: Diaphanes.
Wolukau-Wanambwa, Emma. 2019. This word “art”. In Dissident Lines: lis rhodes, ed. Irene Aristizábal and Lis Rhodes. Zagreb: kerschoffset.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Klages, AL. (2022). “It’s Almost like Greeting”—Artistic Development Projects and Value Making of Traditional Art Practices in Ugandan Civil Society. In: Gaupp, L., Barber-Kersovan, A., Kirchberg, V. (eds) Arts and Power. Kunst und Gesellschaft. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37429-7_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37429-7_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer VS, Wiesbaden
Print ISBN: 978-3-658-37428-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-658-37429-7
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)