Overview
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation of New York has awarded the College of Humanities and Social Sciences an 800,000 US dollars 3-year grant (to run from 2021-2024) for a project entitled ‘Archiving, Memory and Method from the Global South’. The project will enable College faculty and students to conduct research with endangered archives, to collaborate with communities and archival institutions, and to shape future trends in archival research in Uganda.
The focus
The project centres the Humanities and Humanistic Social Sciences at Makerere in contributing to the shaping of global debates relating to archiving and memory. The grant will build capacity for archival research, not only with formal archival repositories such as the Uganda National Archives but also with community archives and intangible archives in the form of oral histories, folklore, dance and music, among others. The project will also enable Makerere scholars to study the role of archives in public life and to engage with communities and archivists in matters concerning the ethics and methods of archival preservation. This work will contribute to the preservation of archives for future generations and generate dialogues over the decolonization of knowledge in the Global South, also leading to curriculum and pedagogical development within the Humanities at Makerere.
Method
The project will support research under three fields:
1. Archives and communities: memory, representation, time;
2. Archives and institutions: power, justice, labour;
3. Archives and academia: knowledge from the Global South.
By approaching archives not only as sources but as sites of power, struggle and memory, the project brings the skills of Humanities’ scholars to bear on issues of historical memory and preservation, particularly from the African perspective. In addition to building research capacity within the university, the project will also contribute to preserving repositories of records and knowledge for future generations of scholars and wider publics across the country.
Envisaged activities: Staff and students’ research and publication, reading groups, public symposia, conferences and curriculum review seminars.
Writing Team: Edgar Taylor (Lead), Josephine Ahikire, Julius Kikooma, Pamela Khanakwa Edgar Nabutanyi & Levis Mugumya
