William Musamba (PhD, African History) is a lecturer at Uganda Martyrs University and Makerere University, Uganda. His research interests focus on the twentieth-century history of Busoga, eastern Uganda. His most recent work is “Record Keeping and Political Advocacy in Late Colonial Uganda: the case of Abataka Abasoga, Busoga, 1940 to 1950,” published by Social Dynamics, Vol 50, Issue 1, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1080/02533952.2024.2335808 available here. Dr. Musamba was a Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa (Next Gen) fellow in 2020 and 2021.
Next Gen: Briefly describe the central argument of your doctoral dissertation. What is its main contribution to knowledge in your field?
Dr. William Musamba: My doctoral dissertation entitled: “Historical Trajectories of Ethnic Conflicts in Busoga, Uganda, 1890 to 1967,” examined how the twentieth-century political history of ‘Busoga kingdom’ has been shaped by competing conceptions of authority and legitimacy in indigenous political thought and colonial governance. It contends that the nature of Busoga’s decentralised politics encouraged a wide variety of intra-ethnic activism, often with very differing ideas about what freedom and identity should be. It further reveals how youthful activists in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s articulated democratic ideals that challenged both the colonial efforts to create a hierarchical centralised kingdom and earlier political norms that situated Busoga’s pre-colonial polities under the influence of neighbouring Buganda and Bunyoro kingdoms’ expansionist ambitions. What emerges from my thesis is a new and important history of how ethno-political activists sought to reframe indigenous thought beyond the centralising tendencies of kingship under indirect rule.
The dissertation contributes empirically and methodologically to knowledge in the area of ethnicity/cultural leadership/political history. Empirically, the study critiques the policy of indirect rule, arguing that whereas British colonialism was presumed to thrive on the preservation and usage of indigenous traditional institutions of control, this proved not to be the case in the context of Busoga ethno-politics. For instance, the colonial destruction of pre-existent “kingdoms,” creation of chiefdoms, termination of dynastic lineages, deposition of “kings,” and the creation of chiefs without traditional and hereditary claims to authority all served to liquidate the long-cherished policy of indirect rule as merely a propaganda tool meant to generate false impression and legitimise the British colonial project. Flaws within the application of “indirect rule” left an indelible mark of contestations over tradition and legitimacy in colonial and post-colonial Busoga, eastern Uganda. The study further contributes to historical methodology through the triangulation of multiple methods of archival materials, historical linguistics, and oral tradition. The ubiquitous use of archival sources, which have only been recently made available for academic research against the evident push to submerge history, is equally a significant methodological contribution.
How did the Next Gen fellowship program impact your doctoral journey?
First of all, I am indebted to the Next Gen Program for the Doctoral Dissertation Proposal and Research Fellowships Awards of 2020 and 2021, respectively. These fellowship awards enabled me to settle and fully concentrate on my PhD studies and gain access to varied pools of study resources amidst the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as a two-year prolonged lockdown in the country (Uganda). With fellowship funding, I was able to traverse the field, collecting vast amounts of archival materials and oral interviews using only less than 40% of it for my PhD thesis. I was able to co-author and publish an article titled: “Busoga States Amalgamation and Ethnic Formation, 1900 to 1950,” published by African Identities, Vol 22, Issue 4, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1080/14725843.2023.2215415 , available here.
The two articles emerged from the field data I collected from the Jinja District Archives and the Confidential Minute Series of the Colonial Archives (now Uganda National Archives), besides the oral interviews with key informant respondents about Busoga’s past and present. Collecting such vast amounts of research material would have been quite difficult if it wasn’t for the generous support from the SSRC’s Next Gen program. Engaging with archival sources brought me into contact with global scholars, notably Derek R. Peterson and David William Cohen, whose ideas have significantly shaped my intellectual thoughts regarding archival and oral traditions as sources of historical reconstruction. Thus, borrowing the words of Ali Mazrui (1984), I would say that the SSRC’s Next Gen brought me “indirectly by a logical chain reaction” into the global network of scholarship, which has greatly impacted my career in a very positive direction.
In addition, the fellowship positioned me in a vibrant APN-Next Gen community of scholars from whom I benefited immensely in terms of comradeship, sharing the would-be hard-to-access study materials, such as books and journal articles, as well as inspiring one another to push on despite the diverse obstructions along the path of study. Further, I have won a number of conference grants or fellowships through responding to the calls which are often shared by the SSRC on the general alumnus mail. These grants enabled me to present my research views at different academic conferences, particularly the MIASA Publishing Workshop at the University of Ghana, Legon, 2021, the British Academy Writing Workshops (2022 and 2024), After the Fire: Loss, Archives and African Studies Conference at the University of Cape Town (2022), besides fully participating in locally organised academic conferences at Makerere University and Uganda Martyrs University, among others. With all the above, I can confidently say that the Next Gen fellowship program has contributed immensely to my career growth as a historian and an academic.
Now that you have completed your PhD, what are your plans for the future?
In the next few years, I look forward to extending my research into a series of journal articles that speak to wider audiences in the field of historical humanities and humanistic social sciences. My forthcoming work on “Epidemics and Ethnic Identity in Busoga, Uganda, 1880 to 1940” is under review by the Makerere University Historical Journal. I am further expanding my analysis of pre-colonial and colonial histories in relation to the recurrence of conflicts, both among and within African ethnicities and cultures, as well as the suppression of women’s central role in the exercise of political power. Broadly, I look forward to establishing myself as an academic, a scholar, and a public intellectual of African history.
What advice do you have for upcoming doctoral students?
PhD students should endeavour to use all available resources, locally and globally, in order to attain the ultimate socio-intellectual transformation. Supervisors/ Advisors, Doctoral/Advisory Committees, Senior peers, and colleagues all play vital roles in shaping one’s doctorate. Lastly, a PhD is very costly, and its success requires continuous effort, determination, and intellectual discipline, that is to say, the willingness to accept criticism with a positive attitude.
William Musamba’s Publication Profile
William Musamba, et al., (2024). Reimagining Academic Writing: The Writing Experiences of Gelizako Juwiva Chrinjalinya, Journals of Global Policy and Wiley, British Academy/ University of Durham. A Blog, available here.
William Musamba (2024). Record-keeping and political advocacy in late colonial Uganda: the case of Abataka Abasoga, Busoga, 1940 to 1950. Social Dynamics. https://doi.org/10.1080/02533952.2024.2335808, available here.
William Musamba & Archangel Byaruhanga Rukooko (2023). Busoga states amalgamation and ethnic formation, Uganda Protectorate, 1900 to 1950, African Identities, , https://doi.org/10.1080/14725843.2023.2215415 available here.
