Browsing by Author "Mwiine, Amon A."

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    Gender equitable change and the place of informal networks in Uganda’s legislative policy reforms
    (ESID, 2020) Mwiine, Amon A.
    Uganda has had an uneven history and experience around gender equity policy reforms, particularly, from the late 1980s and early 1990s to-date. These range from the countrywide constitutional review processes of the early 1990s, legislative activism and reforms around domestic relations, land/property rights, and women’saccess to public position, to mention but a few. While some of these gender reforms (commonly promoted through women’s collective mobilisation) were successful, other legislative initiatives faced intense resistance. This paper compares three policy cases – the 1997 Universal Primary Education policy, the 1998 legislative reform around spousal co-ownership of land and the 2010 Domestic Violence Act. Drawing on feminist institutionalism, the paper explores how gender norms operate within institutions (both formal and informal) and how institutional processes construct, reproduce or challenge gender power dynamics in policy reforms. The paper examines the place of informal networks and raises critical questions regarding waysin which women emerge as critical actors in securing and consolidating gender change, the strategies they draw upon to negotiate resistance, and whether the nature of policy reform influences the kind of resistance and (in effect) counterstrategies used to negotiate resistance to gender change. We also assess the implications
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    Men in Kitchens and the (re) configurations of masculinity in domestic spaces during Covid-19 Lockdown in Uganda
    (Gender and COVID-19, 2020) Mwiine, Amon A.
    Emerging public discourses around the COVID-19 crisis have characterised this pandemic as unprecedented and disruptive. How exactly do such global disruptions of unprecedented nature affect men and masculinities? What kind of narratives around men and masculinities did Corona Virus and its associated preventive measures set off? What do such narratives teach us about changing gender relations and masculinities? These questions form part of my reflections on what I term ‘lockdown masculinities’ – new insights into men’s lives, actions, inter-actions and negotiations between and amongst men, women and children and emerging social practices and (social) media representations associated with men during the COVID-19 crisis in Uganda. Uganda, like the rest of the globe, experienced Corona Virus and its disruptive effect. Mid-March, President Yoweri Museveni ordered the closure of all public events. Religious institutions, political gatherings and all schools among other public engagements shut down, with majority of us who spent most of their time in the public, retreating into the domestic sphere for uncertain period of time. The president declared COVID-19 pandemic as a war, a discourse that intersected with the COVID-19 uncertainty to disrupt gender relations even further.
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    Negotiating patriarchy? Exploring the ambiguities of the narratives on “male champions” of gender equality in Uganda Parliament
    (Agenda, 2019) Mwiine, Amon A.; Mwiine, Amon A.
    There is an emerging trend in which global development actors insist that gender equality programmes and initiatives must involve the participation of men, to the extent, in some cases, of calling for men and boys to empower women and girls. In Uganda, studies exist on how women gender activists have drawn on some men to speak to gender equity issues on their behalf. In some of these studies, supportive men are constituted as ‘champions of gender equality’, as if to express gratitude to and celebrate as unexpected, the significant role these men are seen to play in promoting gender equality. In this article, I draw on interviews with women gender activists in and outside Parliament and some male parliamentarians to explore how and why women opt for men to speak to gender issues on their behalf. I also examine ways in which men who are ‘selected’ to represent female voice on gender issues perceive and represent themselves with regard to promoting gender equality and their relationship with women and other men. The article specifically engages with concerns on whether gender inequalities are challenged or institutionalised through the use of male promoters of gender equality in Uganda Parliament and assesses the implications such manoeuvres have for thinking about gender and feminism, in particular African feminism.
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    The politics of promoting gender equity in contemporary Uganda: Cases of the Domestic Violence Law and the policy on Universal Primary Education
    (ESID, 2015) Ahikire, Josephine; Mwiine, Amon A.
    The paper looks at the ways in which power and politics shape the realisation of women’s rights and gender equity in Ugandan state policy adoption and implementation. The key question explored is around the nature of political power and its influence on gender policy incentives in terms of adoption and implementation. The argument is structured around the politics of recognition – recognition referring to what has been made possible in the form of gender-sensitive policy outcomes, the incentives for the different courses of action, and what influences the ability of the political system to channel women’s interests and representation into effective policy formulation and implementation. This question is explored by investigating the progress of two policy agendas, namely the Domestic Violence Act of 2010 and the promotion of girls’ education within the Universal Primary Education (UPE) policy instituted in 1997.