Don't touch, just listen! popular performance from Uganda

Abstract

The power of ‘indigenous performance forms’ to mobilise popular energy and enthusiasm has led politicians, political activists and non‐government agencies in Africa and elsewhere to see them both as a threat and an opportunity. This article examines some of the ways in which ‘external’ actors have sought to harness ‐ and in the process either reinforce, redirect, or indeed at times to neutralise ‐ the power of popular expression.

The first section examines the importance of indigenous performance in charting people's history and reflecting popular world views, and then identifies some of the ways in which governments, political activists and NGOs have appropriated it for their programmes. The second section presents examples from Uganda, which exemplify some of the issues around the use of popular forms of expression in the service of external agendas. In the discussion and conclusions we take issue with the concept of ‘indigenous performance’, and warn against assuming that ‘indigenous performances’ are automatically authentic in what they have to say. We also argue that the subversive elements of ‘indigenous performance’ are likely to be highly resilient to such manipulation. Just as external actors may abuse the form by imposing a foreign content, so local actors may play with an apparently innocuous form to transmit critical messages ‐ to a limited range of peers. In the light of these discussions, the pros and cons of politicians and NGOs using indigenous performance forms as a development communication strategy are assessed.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Judy El‐Bushra

Judy El Busha(Acting Director, Research and Policy Programme, ACORD) has 30 years of experience in development work in both governmental and non‐governmental bodies, with a particular geographical focus on Sudan and Somalia. Her main areas of professional interest have been research and training in gender and development, distance education, conflict analysis, and more recently culture and performance and its relevance for development. She has worked for ACORD since 1983. Contact [email protected].

Chris Dolan

Chris Dolan,worked from 1992–1996 in the Bushbuckridge area of South Africa, based at the University of the Witwatersrand Rural Facility, where he initiated the Refugee Research Programme in late 1994 as an action research programme examining the changing legal status of Mozambican refugees as a result of the UNHCR repatriation programme. From 1996 ‐1997 he co‐ordinated a USAID funded research project on the reintegration of ex‐combatants in Mozambique for the University of Oxford Refugee Studies Programme, with particular emphasis on Manica and Zambezia provinces. He also taught ‘Refugee Livelihoods’ for the Refugee Studies Programme in 1997 and 1998. From 1997 ‐ 2000 he carried out research on the war in northern Uganda as part of a DFID funded project on Complex Political Emergencies. Until March 2002 he worked for ACORD as their principal researcher on the theme of conflict, and is currently writing up his work on Uganda at the London School of Economics. [email protected]