Project Details
Projekt
Muslims as a religious minority in Uganda
Applicant
Professorin Dorothea E. Schulz, Ph.D.
Subject Area
Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology
African, American and Oceania Studies
African, American and Oceania Studies
Term
from 2014 to 2023
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 262271563
The research project investigates how Muslims in Uganda position themselves as a religious minority in local and national contexts and how, in this process, they define and structure their relations to Christians in public arenas. Rather than focusing exclusively on Muslims, the project addresses these questions by looking at the boundary work effected between Muslims and Christians. To this end, the project examines the discursive and auditory practices and symbolic forms through which Muslims and Christians seek to achieve greater public prominence, to partake in debates over the ordering of social and moral life, and to negotiate their mutual relationship. The project addresses these questions from a media studies perspective, by paying particular attention to the aesthetic and sensory, symbolic forms that, partly remediated via electronic media, allow Muslims in Uganda to experience religious community and to reflect on their minority position in local and national contexts.The project pursues these objectives through a regionally based, comparative examination of two different local settings that illustrate two substantially distinct opportunities for experiencing religious community and for structuring Muslim-Christian relations in Uganda. These comparative case studies thus enable further reflection on the differential implications of these regionally diverse encounters between Muslims' and Christians for Muslims attempts to gain greater political presence in the national arena.
DFG Programme
Research Grants
International Connection
Uganda, USA
Participating Institution
Gulu University
