Doctoral Dissertation Research
Bwaise Town: Masculinity in Urban Uganda in the Age of AIDS
Robert's dissertation explores the social impact of AIDS in Africa and examines how conceptions of masculinity are changing in urban Uganda in the age of AIDS.
Uganda is seen as Africa’s great success story in combating AIDS, and the country is also a leader in promoting gender equality. So how have the AIDS epidemic and the women’s movement impacted notions of masculinity in Uganda?
To answer this question, Robert spent 2003-04 conducting an ethnography of a community called Bwaise in the Ugandan capital, Kampala. His research involved participant observation as an apprentice carpenter, a volunteer at a community health clinic, and an internship with a local NGO focused on preventing domestic violence. This year of ethnographic research was complemented by 69 in-depth interviews with men and women in Bwaise.
By participating in the life of this community, Robert learned conceptions of masculinity in urban Uganda are shifting, but in circumscribed ways. New discourses of gender equity have destabilized ideals of manhood related to work and male authority, while the AIDS epidemic has altered aspects of masculinity related to sexuality. Thus, AIDS and the women’s movement are shaping masculinity, but different dimensions of masculinity, leaving notions of manhood destabilized but not fundamentally transformed.
PhD awarded 2007, Department of Sociology, University of Chicago
Dissertation Committee: Saskia Sassen, Leslie Salzinger, Jennifer Cole