Fish, Family, and the Gendered Politics of Descent Along Uganda’s Southern Littorals

Abstract

Abstract:This article examines historic gendered negotiations over identity, descent, and access to land along Uganda’s southern littorals by thinking about belonging with an exceptionally diverse assemblage of small fish. Based on accounts from contemporary littoral residents, the comparative historic ethnographic record, and fisheries scientists, the article describes the reproductive practices of enkejje as they may have been visible from Uganda’s southern littorals and situates the practices of raising socially recognized children within broader historical developments of clanship and public healing. Attending to these small fish in moments and in places where groups are under construction reorients analyses of descent politics beyond an often implicit focus on male interests towards the work of grandmothers, aunts, and mothers in debating the qualities of the most foundational units of the body politic – male and female children constituted relationally as persons through their status as legitimate family members.