What Mak’s new PhD holders bring on table

Makerere University will today hold its last session of the 72nd  graduation ceremony. More than 12,000 students are set to graduate and of these 100 will be graduating with doctorate degrees. Amos Ngwomoya profiles the high academic achievers.

COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

Anatole Kiriggwajjo 

Topic: The tonology of lunyala nouns, noun phrases and verbs

Mr Kiriggwajjo investigated the tonology of Lunyala one of Uganda’s minority languages mainly spoken in Kayunga District. He argues that although the tone system of Bantu languages has attracted a lot of attention in the last decade, minority languages have been neglected making such languages endangered. His study found out that Lunyala has a privative tone system with the High tone marked underlying while both the underlying and surface tones are borne by moras in a one-to-one correspondence.

John Baptist Imokola 

Topic: Television programming regulation: Examining the policy implementation of local content quotas in Uganda.

Mr Imokola examined the implementation of television local content quotas policy in Uganda. Five years after television local content quotas were implemented in 2014, no known comprehensive assessment had been done on uptake by television stations, and how this is understood by the different stakeholders.

The study analysed the perspectives of different stakeholders, opportunities from the local content quotas and the challenges affecting implementation.

Simon Patrick Kimbowa 

Topic: Decision making styles of Heads of Department and work involvement of Academic staff in Makerere and Nkumba Universities.

 Mr Kimbowa studied the effects of decision making styles of Heads of Department on the work involvement of Academic staff in Makerere and Nkumba Universities. Low work involvement of academic staff manifested in delay in marking students’ examinations and release of results, low research and publication levels, low participation in university activities have been reported. 

Using a descriptive cross-sectional survey designs, this study analysed the effects of Heads of Departments decision making styles on job involvement, career involvement and organisational commitment of academic staff.

Okombo Patrick Lugwiri 

Topic: A citizen sociolinguistics appraisal of kiswahili as a tool for social integration in the east african community

Mr Okombo employed the Citizen Sociolinguistics model to explore languagebased decisions about Kiswahili among ordinary citizens in the East African Community, specifically, in Busia and Namanga border towns. 

Lugwiri’s study was motivated by Article 137(2) of the EAC Treaty (1999) which provides for the promotion of Kiswahili as a lingua franca of the Community. Using ethnographic methods, the study examined the patterns and extent of the use of Kiswahili, the nature of Kiswahili used, and citizens perceptions and attitudes to Kiswahili.

The study found that Kiswahili is construed, constructed and appropriated differently by different citizens in different domains and spaces, and therefore, a highly varied language

Marjorie Niyitegeka Kyomuhendo

Topic: Family planning communication in Uganda: an  interrogation of media reporting, communication  campaigns and audience perspectives

Ms Kyomuhendo’s study was motivated by the constant high awareness and low use of contraceptives by most women and men of reproductive age in Uganda.  She thus examined the framing of family planning information in selected media stories and health communication campaigns.

She also explored how audience members targeted by the campaigns interpreted family planning information. Her study found deficiencies in family planning communication occasioned by shallow media reporting and information transmission approaches that disregarded the audience’s information needs and contextual factors. She recommends that the Ministry of Health and partners implement a harmonised communication strategy that is audiencecentred and responsive to the emerging information needs and socio-ecological contexts of particular audience segments.

Jonathan Mugenyi

Topic: Singing Politics: Popular Music, Popular Politics and Contingencies of Protest in NRM’s Uganda

 Mr Mugenyi examined the deployment of musical expression in the practice of state politics under Uganda’s National Resistance Movement. On the one hand, he investigated the direct and implied ways by which the NRM deploys musical expression as a tool of political mobilisation and legitimisation while on the other hand, he examined ways by which the Ugandan society uses musical expression to create alternatives ways of engaging with NRM politics. 

Expanding the Foucauldian theory of power, Mugenyi argues that musical expression is a conduit of state power that percolates into society and it is the same conduit that returns to the state to challenge its power as contingencies of protest.

Kassim Mwanika

Topic:  Commercial sugarcane farming  and rural youth  livelihoods in eastern Uganda

 Mr Mwanika examined the implications of commercial farming on a   vulnerable population. Focusing on sugarcane farming and youth livelihoods in Eastern Uganda, he found that sugarcane farming has a suboptimal impact on youth livelihoods in Busoga Sub-region.

 Due to limited requisite resources, the youth constitute the bulk of sugarcane labour force and their benefits from the industry are limited to wage earnings. He argues that commercial sugarcane farming is an enclave for wealthy groups, and that youth are incorporated into circuits of capital accumulation where they are exploited by employers.

The process is exacerbated by lack of labour regulations and sugarcane price volatility, which undermine the trickle-down effect of sugarcane farming on youth livelihoods.

Deborah  Nakalyowa

Topic: Intimate Partner Violence and Masculinities: Experiences of Baganda male “survivors” in Masaka District, Uganda

 Ms Nakalyowa examined, through a qualitative methodology, the lived experiences of men who were subjected to Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) by their female intimate partners in heterosexual relationships, including forms/types in which the IPV manifested, and how it affected the masculine identities of the male victims.  Findings revealed that they were subjected to psychological/emotional violence, in addition to physical aggression and sexual abuse in the contexts of Intimate Terrorism, Situational Couple Violence and Mutual Violent Control. While the importance of maintaining an appropriate sense of masculinity underpinned their narratives, the male victims described feeling shame and embarrassment for not having met the dominant cultural expectations surrounding masculinity.

Joyce  Nansamba

Topic: Why They Stay: A socio-cultural Reconstruction of Academics’ Retention in Uganda’s Public Universities.

 Ms Nansamba explains why Academics stay working in Uganda’s Public Universities despite unappealing working conditions. Recognising that staff retention is not exclusively about institutional frameworks and individually situated explanations, the study underscores the role of historical, social and cultural contexts in explaining retention.

A narrative analysis of the academics’ stories revealed that the meaning academics attach to their professional identity, the social relations from engaged scholarship and the otherness from external prestige explain their retention.

The study was a departure from conventional thinking that attractive pay and benefits, satisfactory terms of service, good working conditions among others explain retention.

Eria  Muwanguzi

Topic: Applicability of Smerek and Peterson’s Assessment Model in analyzing Job Satisfaction among the Academic Staff at Makerere University 

Mr Muwanguzi applied Smerek and Peterson’s Assessment Model dimensions to analysis job satisfaction among the academic staff at Makerere University. The study specifically examined whether intrinsic, extrinsic factors, job characteristics and personal characteristics were significant predictors of job satisfaction among academic staff.  Using a positivist paradigm and a descriptive cross-sectional survey research design, it was established that the intrinsic factor of recognition was the most significant predictor of job satisfaction.

It was, thus, recommended that Makerere University should strengthen its recognition strategy to improve job satisfaction among the academic staff.

Robinah  Nakabo Seruga

Topic:  Followership and Women’s Empowerment for Sustainable  Development: A Case of the Women in the National   Association of Women’s Organisations in Uganda

Ms Nakabo investigated followership and women’s empowerment for sustainable development, taking the case of the women in NAWOU.

After in-depth interviews, findings showed that followership was generally a taken for granted concept. Respondents perceived followership as a cooperative venture, retrospection on past experiences, as a detour, seeking to stabilise or destabilise the status quo, identifying preferred values, and mentorship.

Most voices reiterated that generally, many women exhibited perpetual and unconscious followership tendencies even when other alternatives were available; with fear as the main causal condition.

Julius  Niringiyimana

Topic:  Oil Politics and Land Conflicts in the Albertine Region, Uganda

 Mr Niringiyimana investigated how oil politics was influencing the changing nature of land conflicts in the Albertine region of Uganda. The study discovered that though the Ugandan government had been engaging in protracted negotiations with multinational oil corporations in an effort to protect the national interests, the process instead got plagued by land conflicts and dispossession of citizens from their land. It established that the interests of the actors conflicted and led to the politicisation of oil governance.

Consequently, the government was made to adjust its position to accommodate the interests of multinational oil corporations while other opportunistic interests, such as land speculators also took advantage.

Constance Mudondo 

Topic: Land conflicts and livelihoods of people utilising Namatala Wetland in eastern Uganda

 Ms  Mudondo examined how land conflicts shape livelihoods of people. Using  Namatala Wetland in Eastern Uganda as a case, she examined the conflict dimensions and drivers, land use, and conflict management mechanisms. She found that increasing demand for moist farm land shape conflict dimensions leading to cleavage formation based on class, ethnicity, and location.

The emergent quests for territorial control and inequality result in violence, which hinders optimal use of land and diminishes wetland users’ capitals. Although formal conflict management strategies have been tried, they were largely protectionist and divisive, reinforcing feelings of relative deprivation and latent hostilities. Consequently, the wetland users have resorted to informal coping mechanisms like social-networks that act as collective labour, financial safety valves and buffers against attacks.

Nicholas  Tunanukye

Topic: A History of Migrancy, Nativism, and Citizenship in Uganda, 1894-1995: A case of South and Western Uganda

 Mr Tunanukye examined the relationship between migrations, identity formations and citizenship in Uganda, 1894-1995 using migration experiences of Bakiga and Banyankole into Buganda, and Bakiga into Bunyoro.

Using historical research methods which included analysis of documents, oral narratives and archival sources, the study established that, whereas migration had taken place in pre-Uganda, colonial rule encouraged unprecedented internal migration in Uganda.  The new socio-economic order brought about by the colonial state opened the way for free movement in the protectorate across ethnic boundaries. There were two main reasons for this accelerated migration: migrant labour and search for land.  The migration of Banyankole and Bakiga to Buganda in the 1930s, 1940s into 1960s was largely in response to the former, while the migration of the Bakiga into Bunyoro and Toro regions during the 1950s and 1960s was in response to the latter.

Nixon Wamamela

Topic: A critique of constitutional making and amendment in Uganda with reference to the 1967 &1995 Constitution

 Mr Wamamela conducted an ethical critique of constitutional making and amendment in Uganda with specific reference to the 1967 and 1995 constitutions.

The study established that the constitutional processes were seemingly legitimate, yet, self-interest tendencies overrode common interest, hence, the resultant controversies such as lack of consensus among members of parliament, questionable declaration of state of emergency, controversial consultations, resultant scuffles and violent scenes in parliament. It was also established that ideals of constitutional democracy and legislative ethics were lacking. 

To mitigate the above challenges, an ethical framework for constitutional making and amendment processes should be put into account. Such a framework should include referenda, benchmarking and a national consensus on ethical principles.