‘I was born in the reign …’: Historical orientation in Ugandan students’ national narratives

In2012,Ugandacelebrated50yearsasanindependentstatefollowingmorethanhalfacenturyundercolonialrule.Sinceindependence,Ugandahasexperiencedaperiodofpoliticalturmoilandcivilwarwithinitsconstructedcolonialborders.Giventhesehistoricalexperiences,whatdostudentsfindimportantabouttheirnation’shistoryandwhathistorydotheyrelatetowhenaskedtoexplaintheircontemporarysocietyandenvisagepossiblefutures?ThisarticlearguesthatUgandanstudents’historicalorientationisinformedbyanddependentonthesestudents’localcontexts.Furthermore,thosestudentsadoptingaretrospectiveapproachtohistory,comparedwiththoseapplyingaprospectiveapproach,mademoresophisticatedjudgementsaboutthepast.Thestudyonwhichthisarticleisbasedexplores219narrativeswrittenby73Ugandanuppersecondarystudents.Thenarrativeswereelicitedthroughwrittenresponsestothreeassignmentsandweredesignedtocapturedifferentapproachestohistory,specifically prospective and retrospective approaches.Participantsoriginatedfrom twodistinctregions:centralandnorthernUganda.Theempiricalresultsshowhowdifferentapproachestohistoryinfluencethestudents’narratives.Forinstance,valuejudgementsaboutpastdevelopmentsweremorecommonamongstudentsapplyinga retrospective approach. StudentsfromnorthernUgandaweregenerallymoreinclinedtotellastoryofdecline.

The analytical units of the study were 219 narratives elicited through written responses tothreeassignments.Theresearcherhandedouttheassignmentstothestudentswhowere allocated40minutesperassignmenttocompletethesetofthree.Aquestionnairewashanded out along with the first assignment to collect students' basic information regarding age, sex, languagesspokenandtribalaffinity.Bothgenderswereequallyrepresented,with38femaleand 35malestudents.
Allnarrativeswereperceivedaspublicnarratives,usingSomers'terminology,andderivedfrom the historical cultures of the students. However, while two of the assignments focused on the national story the last assignment explored what public stories would be invoked if the studentsfreelychosepasteventsimportanttothemselvesandtheirfamily.Thefirstassignment was inspired by the research of Létourneau (Létourneau and Moisan, 2011;Lévesque et al., 2013). The assignment had a prospective approach to history and was framed by national history. The second assignment, in contrast, had a retrospective approach since it departed from the contemporary situation of Uganda looking to the past for explanations. The third assignment was also designed to work retrospectively, but was not framed by Uganda as a nation.Assignmentstwoandthreeweredesignedfromahistoricalconsciousnessperspective statingthathistorystemsfromeverydaylifethroughpersonalconnotations.Theassignments hence rendered three kinds of narratives: prospective public narratives, retrospective public narrativesandretrospectivepersonalnarratives. Narrative analysis was used to explore both what the students regarded as historically significant and what patterns among them pointed to particular historical orientations. Both thematicandstructuralapproacheswereused.Thethematicanalysisfocusedonthecontent,or whatwasbeingsaid,whilestructuralanalysisfocusedonthestructureofthenarrative,orhow thestorywasbeingtold (Riessman,2008:105).Theapproachtotheresponseswashenceboth descriptiveandanalytical.Theanalysisoftheprospectivepublicnarrativesinvolvedidentifying categoriesofchronology,i.e.episodes,amongthedata,basedonthereferencesthatstudents madeintheirnarratives.Thereferencesmadewerealsocategorizedaccordingtothecontent thatcharacterizedeachoftheepisodes.Theepisodeswerelastlycomparedwithanarrative plotwithepisodes,assuggestedbyLétourneauandMoisan (2011):i.e.aninitialstate,astate of change, a state of liberation and a state of uncertainty. When analysing the retrospective public narratives the chronological categories were used as analytical tools, as the episodes became points of reference that explained the contemporary situation. With two nodes in time,thecontemporarysituationandtheinvokedepisode,thenarrativescouldbeassessedas storiesofeitherprogressordecline.Thestructuralapproachcanthereforebeconnectedto theconceptofhistoricalorientation,whichfocusesontheplotofthenarrative.Theconceptof historicalsignificancealsoprovedimportantintheanalysisasitexploressimultaneouslywhatis perceivedasimportantandto whom.Assuch,theconceptincludesbothanepistemologicaland anontologicaldimension.Theconceptcouldhencebeusedtoexplorewhatpublicstorieswere invoked among the retrospective personal narratives. In the following sections the empirical bodyelicitedthroughthethreeassignmentswillbepresented;thisconsistsofpublicprospective narratives,publicretrospectivenarrativesandpersonalretrospectivenarratives.

Episodes of Ugandan history -A prospective approach to history
Overall,itwaslesscommonforthosestudentsproducingprospectivenarrativestopassjudgement onpastdevelopmentsthanforthosetakingaretrospectiveapproachtodoso.However,some differencesbetweenthetworegions,centralandnorthernUganda,werediscernible.Before exploringthiswewillconsiderthestructureofthenarrativesbeingpresented.Thecontentof theprospective public narrativesdemonstratesthatthehistoryofUgandacanbecategorizedinto four main episodes: pre-colonial, colonial, independence and post-colonial (see Table 1). All referencesmadetothepastwerecategorizedintermsofthesefourdistinctepisodes.These categorieswerederivedfromthereferencesusedbythestudentnarrators.Eventhoughnotall narratorsincludedallepisodes,thisformedthebasicstructureofthenarratives. Aspartoftheanalysis,thenarrationswereinterpretedaseitherdescriptivestories,progress stories or stories of decline. Table 2 accounts for the different views -progress, decline or descriptive -thestudentsheldtowardsthepost-colonialepisode. Certain historical orientations were discernible among the prospective public narratives; these could be seen either in the expression of pride and hope for the future informed by development since colonialism and more recently during Museveni's reign, or in pessimism regarding the present and probably the future with reference made to political turmoil and corruption.However,orientationsofbothtypesweremoreobviousamongtheretrospective publicnarratives.

A retrospective approach to history
Thefactthattheprospectivepublicnarrativesbecamemoreandmore'political',withdisparity inviewsonthehistoricalsituationincreasingthecloserthenarratorscametocontemporary times, might imply that the same phenomenon would appear even more pronouncedly in a retrospectiveapproachtohistory.Thesecondassignmentthestudentswrotewastodescribe contemporarylifeinUgandaandtoexplainwhatfromhistoryhadaffecteditinbecomingthat way.
In departing from the contemporary situation in Uganda and searching the past for an explanation,thenarrativesbecameeitherstoriesofprogressorstoriesofdecline.Theformer typewasmuchlesscommonthanthelatter,numbering31percentand66percentrespectively. (Theremaining3percentrelatestotwostoriesdescribedasincompleteandhencenotincluded in the Table 3 classification.) The historically significant past events identified as affecting the contemporarysocietyallconcernedeitheracolonialepisodeorapost-colonialepisode.The episodesidentifiedintheprospectivepublicnarrativeswerehenceusedasanalyticalcategories. ThesearepresentedinTable3. A reference to a post-colonial episode was nevertheless the most common feature of the retrospective narratives, occurring in 66 per cent of the 71 narratives. However, while only 16 per cent of these narratives featuring post-colonial episodes were stories of progress, as muchas51percentwerestoriesofdecline.Consequently,halfofthetotalnumberofstudents narratedstoriesofdeclinereferringtoapost-colonialepisode.Thesestoriesresembledthe progressanddeclinestoriesencounteredintheprospectivepublicnarratives:progressstories thatweretributestoMuseveniandspokeoftherelativepeacesinceherosetopower,and declinestoriesthatindicatedthepresenceofwar,corruptionandimbalancebetweenregions. Thefollowingnarrativeisanexampleofaprogressstoryreferringtoapost-colonialepisode: TheUgandaIliveintodayispeacefulandhasgonethroughgreatpolitical,economicandsocial changes under the rule of a democratic government under the leadership of the National Resistance movement and all these changes have affected contemporary life in this country. Thejudgementsmadeconcerningthepastwerehencemoreapparentintheretrospectivepublic narratives than they had been in the prospective public narratives. Both stories of progress and stories of decline were increasingly visible when a retrospective approach was used. But while stories of progress increased the most among central Ugandan students there came a correspondingsubstantialincreaseamongthestoriesofdeclinerelatedbythenorthernUgandan students.Intotal36percentofthecentralUgandanstudentsandnolessthan65percentof thenorthernUgandanstoldastoryofdecline.Yet,bothoftheassignmentsthatelicitedthese narrativeswereframedbyUgandaasanation.Thoseaspectsofthepastthatwereimportant tothenarratorandhisorherfamilybecamethefocusintheretrospectivepersonalnarratives.
Reviewing these levels of response to the question concerning to whom history was significantdemonstratedthatthenarrativesincludedeitherUgandansorAfricans(seeTable5). Disregardingthefamily-relatedlevelandtwonarrativesonthesocietallevelabouttribalorigin (allinall29narratives,andhence40percentofthetotalof73)showedthatthestorytoldwas typicallysignificanttothenarrator/readeraseitheraUgandanoranAfrican(60percentofthe narratives). referringtoPan-Africanismandtheslavetradeeraasimportanthistoriesworthretelling.The othernarrativesmainlyconcernedthesocietallevelandaddressedthemesonAfricantradition and culture. These narratives mobilized Africans rather than Ugandans. The narratives were critical of the impact of modernity and foreign influence on African culture and traditions. Modern changes were described in terms of western permissiveness and claimed that old systems needed to be revived in order to combat neo-colonialism. As was stated by one narrator,itwouldbe'anactofafoolnottoreducethewidespreadofneo-colonialism'(Male student,northernregion;5FNU10).

Notes on the contributor
UlrikHolmbergcurrentlyworksasanuppersecondaryteacherofhistoryandsocialstudies at Globala Gymnasiet, Stockholm, Sweden. He is a Karlstad University affiliate, and in 2016 publishedhislicentiatedegreethesisthere:Significant History and Historical Orientation -Ugandan students narrate their historical pasts.