Grace Musila

Academic, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa

ias.ug.edu.gh/content/professor-grace-musila

Musisi, Nakanyike B. “A Personal Journey into Custom, Identity, Power, and Politics: Researching and Writing the Life and Times of Buganda's Queen Mother Irene Drusilla Namaganda (1896–1957).” History in Africa 23 (1996): 369–85. doi:10.2307/3171949.

The popularity of African novels lies in their ability to convey to the reader how a society might have functioned with or without a state. Since most often a novelist tries to recreate a historical moment, a novel becomes a pedagogical tool of what Klein has called a “reasonable representation of what society may have been like.” In the most popularly utilized novels, an individual is cast at the center of the unfolding story. Most often, the African novel concerns itself with the impact of colonialism and the transition from traditional to contemporary African realities. This is frequently done with the aim of conveying to the reader the processes of adjustment and the pros and cons of this adjustment.

Source: Extract from article.

Musisi, Nakanyike. “GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN AFRICAN HISTORY: A PERSONAL REFLECTION.” Journal of African History 55, no. 3 (2014): 303–15. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021853714000589.

This piece considers the subfields of African gender and sexuality history, from the perspective of an unusual career path that has moved between higher education and activist work in Canada and Uganda, and included policy and public service work in the latter. Over the past few decades, African women's history has shifted from the margins of African historiography to the mainstream; scholars have subjected a wide range of topics to insightful gender analysis; and increasingly sophisticated studies of sexuality have emerged. This piece surveys these important developments and how they have played out in the classroom in relation to students’ shifting political and social sensibilities. It argues that, moving forward, scholars should devote more attention to the precolonial history of sexuality and develop creative methodologies for reconstructing that history, especially through engaging historical demography.

Source: Article Abstract

Musisi, Nakanyike B. “Morality as Identity: The Missionary Moral Agenda in Buganda,1877-1945.” Journal of Religious History 23, no. 1 (1999): 51–74. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9809.00073.

This article advances three arguments. First, that prior to European intrusion in the mid-1800s, “Buganda” and “Mugandaness” were continually contested ideologies whose meanings were not given but discursively constructed and reconstructed in conditions of historical specificity. Second, that “Baganda” as an identity, was first constructed in the early travellers’ journals. Later on missionaries and Buganda’s leading chiefs appropriated the construct “Buganda” and actively participated in its elaboration and refinement as it was later to be used and popularized in the twentieth century. Third, that Buganda identity was constructed through the active silencing of the disruptive relations of ethnicity, of gender, and of class. In the celebration of an ethnic identity, inequalities and oppression were glossed over. Out of a confrontation with the “other,” Buganda identity was carefully and powerfully articulated by the Christian middle-class men who, from 1900, dominated the newly created ruling council of Buganda, called the Lukiiko.

Source: Excerpt from article's abstract

Mutangadura, Chido. “Africa Must Prevent Its Soldiers and Police from Becoming Drivers of Instability.”  Institute for Security Studies, ISS Today, July 15, 2021.

The involvement of state security institutions in politics plays a role in driving political instability in Africa. The challenge usually extends beyond the military to encompass the judiciary, police and intelligence.

Source: Excerpt from article

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Muthoni Drama Queen

Music Rapper/drummer/cultural entrepreneur

Kenya

instagram.com/muthonidrummerqueen/?hl=en‍

Mutonya, Maina wa and Catherine Bosire. 2013. The Politics of Everyday Life in Gǐkűyű Popular Music of Kenya (1990-2000). Nairobi Kenya: Twaweza Communications.

While probing the politics of everyday in Gikuyu popular music, the main thrust of this book is to unpack the representation of daily struggles through music. Depending mainly on the lyrics of the songs, the study also combines both the textual and the contextual analysis of the music. Music here is studied both as a text, and as an aspect of popular culture. The decade1990-2000 in Kenya provides two contrasting political developments, which directly impacted on the ordinary Kenyan; firstly, the extremes of the country ís one-party rule were at the peak until when multi-party democracy was re-introduced. This ushered in a new era, but with antecedents in one-party rule, where service delivery was below par and economic mismanagement, corruption, assassinations and detentions continued unabated. It is in this contrasting environment that popular arts proliferated as a way of countering the repressed freedom of expression. This book, therefore, looks at how the Gikuyu musicians reacted and responded to these social and political realities in their songs. Music is discussed as an essential site for creation, re-creation and negotiation of the various forms of identities.

[Source: Culled fromAmazon.com].

Mutu Wangechi

Artist (Painting, sculpture)

Location: USA

‍wangechimutu.com

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