Tracking the trajectory of feminist advocacy in Uganda: How has theory informed the practice of advocacy?

Abstract

abstract Since Uganda’s independence in 1962, feminist advocacy in Africa and Uganda, in particular, has experienced waves and critical agendas that have shaped the direction of movements and women’s rights organisations. How can we map the trajectory of feminist advocacy to understand the influence of theory, in particular African feminism(s) in Uganda? This is the central focus of this article. Literature shows how women activists in Africa took centre stage, questioned women's conspicuous absence in social economic and political history and assertively challenged patriarchal oppression against women in public and private spheres. Activists in the Ugandan feminist movement formulated advocacy strategies to resist colonial gender oppression, mobilised women to respond to the review of the constitutional provisions on women’s rights, to organise even when confronted with state silencing, and to form critical alliances to meet male resistance to their political representation in Parliament head on, among others, since independence. The article draws on findings from an empirical study conducted in 2019-2021, Kampala, Uganda, on selected historical junctures and interrogates theoretical origins and motivations that could be read as having informed feminist advocacy - the feminist agenda, strategies and tactics, framing and language. I am particularly interested in how African feminists’ theoretical frames critically inform shifting advocacy positions in Uganda over time to advance gender transformation, and thereby advance the theorisation of an African centred-feminist advocacy.