Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T19:55:42.689Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘We are passing our leisure time’: moving on from education in eastern Uganda

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Ben Jones
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the trading centre of Atine Atirir in eastern Uganda, young men gather to play ludo. They are educated but most do not have salaried employment. Many farm and do some form of casual labour. They talk about the importance of leisure and ‘leisure time’ and discuss the prospects of Arsenal in the English Premier League. In this article I explore the relationship between education, farming and ‘leisure time’ and look at the ways in which young men in particular make sense of lives that involve both schooling and farming. A number of scholars have focused on the tensions and frustrations of educated – typically urban – youth in Africa and elsewhere. They observe a growing distance between older and younger people, and the ways young men define their situation as one of boredom, dissatisfaction and waiting. By contrast, I show the ways in which the ludo board helped younger men in a poorer, rural setting elide an interest in an ‘educated style’ with rural forms of work – farming, petty trading and casual employment – and how the space around the game was mostly a site of play and relaxation, a place for passing, rather than killing, time. There was also a large degree of sympathy between the generations.

Résumé

Résumé

Dans le centre de commerce d'Atine Atirir, dans l'Est de l'Ouganda, des jeunes hommes se rassemblent pour jouer au ludo. Ils sont éduqués, mais la plupart n'ont pas d'emploi salarié. Beaucoup sont fermiers et effectuent un travail occasionnel. Ils parlent de l'importance des loisirs et du « temps de loisirs », et discutent des chances d'Arsenal dans le championnat anglais. Dans cet article, l'auteur explore la relation entre éducation, agriculture et « temps de loisirs », et examine la manière dont les jeunes en particulier donnent du sens aux vies qui allient scolarité et agriculture. Certains chercheurs se sont intéressés aux tensions et aux frustrations des jeunes éduqués (généralement urbains) en Afrique et ailleurs. Ils observent une distance croissante entre les personnes âgées et les jeunes, et la manière dont les jeunes définissent leur situation en parlant d'ennui, d'insatisfaction et d'attente. L'article montre en revanche comment le tablier de ludo aidait des jeunes en milieu urbain à allier un intérêt pour un « style éduqué » à des formes de travail rurales (agriculture, petit commerce et travail occasionnel), et comment l'espace autour du jeu était principalement une aire de loisir et de détente, un lieu pour passer le temps, plutôt que pour le tuer. On y observait également une grande sympathie entre les générations.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 90 , Issue 2 , February 2020 , pp. 252 - 272
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abbink, J. and van Kessel, I. (eds) (2005) Vanguard or Vandals: youth, politics, and conflict in Africa. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Archambault, J. S. (2013) ‘Cruising through uncertainty: cell phones and the politics of display and disguise in Inhambane, Mozambique’, American Ethnologist 40 (1): 88–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Argenti, N. and Durham, D. (2013) ‘Youth’ in Parker, J. and Reid, R. (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Modern African History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bolt, M. (2015) Zimbabwe's Migrants and South Africa's Border Farms: the roots of impermanence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1984) Distinction: a social critique of the judgment of taste. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Cheney, K. E. (2007) Pillars of the Nation: child citizens and Ugandan national development. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christiansen, C., Utas, M. and Vigh, H. E. (2006) Navigating Youth, Generating Adulthood: social becoming in an African context. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.Google Scholar
Cole, J. and Durham, D. (eds) (2007) Figuring the Future: children, youth, and globalization. Santa Fe NM: School of American Research Press.Google Scholar
Comaroff, J. and Comaroff, J. L. (1999) ‘Occult economies and the violence of abstraction: notes from the South African postcolony’, American Ethnologist 26 (2): 279–303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Comaroff, J. and Comaroff, J. L. (2009) Ethnicity, Inc. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dawson, H. (2014) ‘Youth politics: waiting and envy in a South African informal settlement’, Journal of Southern African Studies 40 (4): 861–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Berry, J. (2000) ‘Life after loss: an anthropological study of post-war recovery, Teso, east Uganda, with special reference to young people’. PhD thesis, Department of Anthropology, London School of Economics and Political Science.Google Scholar
Dore, R. (1976) The Diploma Disease: education, qualification, and development. London: George Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Dungey, C. E. and Meinert, L. (2017) ‘Schooling and the instability of adulthood for young men in Uganda’ in Durham, D. and Solway, J. (eds), Elusive Adulthoods: the anthropology of new maturities. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Durham, D. (2000) ‘Youth and the social imagination in Africa’, Anthropological Quarterly 73 (3): 113–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Esson, J. (2013) ‘A body and a dream at a vital conjuncture: Ghanaian youth, uncertainty and the allure of football’, Geoforum 47: 84–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferguson, J. (1999) Expectations of Modernity: myths and meanings of urban life on the Zambian Copperbelt. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Finnström, S. (2006) ‘Meaningful rebels? Young adult perceptions on the Lord's Resistance Movement/Army in Uganda’ in Christiansen, C., Utas, M. and Vigh, H. E. (eds), Navigating Youth, Generating Adulthood: social becoming in an African context. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.Google Scholar
Gombrich, E. H. (1973) ‘Huizinga's Homo Ludens’ in Koops, W. R. H., Kossmann, E. H. and van der Plaat, G. (eds), Johan Huizinga 1872–1972. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Hague, G., Thiara, R. K. and Turner, A. (2011) ‘Bride-price and its links to domestic violence and poverty in Uganda: a participatory action research study’, Women's Studies International Forum 34 (6): 550–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansen, K. T. (2005) ‘Getting stuck in the compound: some odds against social adulthood in Lusaka, Zambia’, Africa Today 51 (4): 3–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henriques, P. (2002) ‘Peace without reconciliation: war, peace and experience among the Iteso of Uganda’. PhD thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Honwana, A. (2014) ‘“Waithood”: youth transitions and social change’ in Foeken, D., Dietz, T. and Haan, L. (eds), Development and Equity: an interdisciplinary exploration by ten scholars from Africa, Asia and Latin America. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Honwana, A. and De Boeck, F. (2005) Makers and Breakers: children and youth in postcolonial Africa. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Huizinga, J. (1955 [1938]) Homo Ludens: a study of the play element in culture. Boston MA: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Jeffrey, C. (2010a) ‘Timepass: youth, class, and time among unemployed young men in India’, American Ethnologist 37 (3): 465–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jeffrey, C. (2010b) Timepass: youth, class and the politics of waiting in India. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Jones, B. (2005) ‘The church in the village, the village in the church: Pentecostalism in Teso, Uganda’, Cahiers d’Études Africaines 45 (178): 497–517.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, B. (2007) ‘The Teso insurgency remembered: churches, burials and propriety’, Africa 77 (4): 500–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, B. (2009) Beyond the State in Rural Uganda. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Jones, B. (2013) ‘The making of meaning: churches, development projects and violence in eastern Uganda’, Journal of Religion in Africa 43 (1): 74–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kandel, M. (2016) ‘Struggling over land in post-conflict Uganda’, African Affairs 115 (459): 274–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karp, I. (1978) Fields of Change among the Iteso of Kenya. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Langevang, T. (2008) ‘“We Are Managing!” Uncertain paths to respectable adulthoods in Accra, Ghana’, Geoforum 39 (6): 2039–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lawrance, J. C. D. (1957) The Iteso: fifty years of change in a Nilo-Hamitic tribe of Uganda. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mains, D. (2007) ‘Neoliberal times: progress, boredom, and shame among young men in urban Ethiopia’, American Ethnologist 34 (4): 659–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mannheim, K. (1972 [1952]) ‘The problem of generations’, Psychoanalytic Review 57 (3): 378–404.Google Scholar
Masquelier, A. (2013) ‘Teatime: boredom and the temporalities of young men in Niger’, Africa 83 (3): 470–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meinert, L. (2009) Hopes in Friction: schooling, health, and everyday life in Uganda. Charlotte NC: Information Age Publishing.Google Scholar
Muthegheki, S. B., Crispus, K. S. and Abrahams, N. (2012) An Exploratory Study of Bride Price and Domestic Violence in Bundibugyo District, Uganda. Bundibugyo, Uganda: Centre for Human Rights Advancement.Google Scholar
Mwaura, G. M. (2017a) ‘“Just farming?” Neoliberal subjectivities and agricultural livelihoods among educated youth in Kenya’, Development and Change 48 (6): 1310–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mwaura, G. M. (2017b) ‘“The side-hustle”: diversified livelihoods of Kenyan educated young farmers’, IDS Bulletin 48 (3): 51–66.Google Scholar
Namuggala, V. (2016) ‘Gender, age and armed violence: complexity of identity among returning formerly displaced youth in Uganda’. PhD thesis, Arizona State University.Google Scholar
Ralph, M. (2008) ‘Killing time’, Social Text 26 (4/97): 1–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ravalde, L. (2017) ‘Limiting Catholicism: scepticism, ambivalence and productive uncertainty in eastern Uganda’. PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Resnick, D. and Thurlow, J. (eds) (2015) African Youth and the Persistence of Marginalization: employment, politics, and prospects for change. Abingdon and New York NY: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sumberg, J., Anyidoho, N. A., Leavy, J., te Lintelo, D. J. H. and Wellard, K. (2012) ‘Introduction: the young people and agriculture problem in Africa’, IDS Bulletin 43 (6): 1–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uganda (2015) Uganda: second national development plan (NDPII) 2015/16–2019/20. Kampala: Government of Uganda <https://eprcug.org/children/publications/child-welfare/child-poverty-and-vulnerability/national-development-plan-2015-16-to-2019-20>, accessed 15 April 2019.,+accessed+15+April+2019.>Google Scholar
Vigh, H. (2006) ‘Social death and violent life chances’ in Christiansen, C., Utas, M. and Vigh, H. E. (eds), Navigating Youth, Generating Adulthood: social becoming in an African context. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.Google Scholar
Vigh, H. (2009) ‘Wayward migration: on imagined futures and technological voids’, Ethnos 74 (1): 91–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vigh, H. (2010) ‘Youth mobilisation as social navigation: reflections on the concept of dubriagem’, Cadernos de Estudos Africanos 18/19: 139–64.Google Scholar
Vincent, J. (1968) African Elite: the ‘big men’ of a small town. New York NY: University of Columbia Press.Google Scholar
Vincent, J. (1982) Teso in Transformation: the political economy of peasant and class in eastern Africa. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Vokes, R. (2010) ‘Arsenal in Bugamba: the rise of English Premier League football in Uganda’, Anthropology Today 26 (3): 10–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weiss, B. (2002) ‘Thug realism: inhabiting fantasy in urban Tanzania’, Cultural Anthropology 17 (1): 93–124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whyte, S. Reynolds and Acio, E. (2017) ‘Generations and access to land in postconflict northern Uganda: “Youth have no voice in land matters”’, African Studies Review 60 (3): 17–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zistel, S. (2002) ‘Critical hermeneutics and conflict resolution: an assessment of the transition from conflict to peace in Teso, Uganda, 1986–2000’. PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.Google Scholar