Constructing Ugandan Modernity

Study #1: Mobile Phones

Uganda is a country where over half the population owns mobile phones. You can buy time by the second. It is customary for someone to call and then hang up, because it costs nothing to receive a call an they will expect you to call them back. Many people own phones and go weeks, even months without buying time. A man in the village my organization works in owns a phone but has never owned a SIM card, and therefore has never made a call. Says a lot about how social status transcends economic boundaries.


Study #2: Pop Culture

The homogeneousness of pop culture in Uganda is shocking, even for someone subject to the narrowness of contemporary American tastes. The variety of music on pop stations rivals mainstream clear channel stations in the US in terms of shortness of playlists. In terms of local music, the style vaguely mimics the repetitive and monotonous melodies of reggaetone with a bit of African gospel thrown in. Of course hip hop, usually Jamaican influenced, is prevalent. So much for the hipness of being different.
Clothing choices generally conform to whatever t-shirts and jumper sets have been shipped wholesale secondhand from the US. Any form of Arsenal or Man U jersey (see next section) are also a required component of any wardrobe.
Last month my organization hosted a youth talent show. The complete list of talents performed included: singing pop songs, "miming" (i.e. lipsyncing) pop songs, and dancing Usher-style to pop songs. A few also sang their own (poppy) songs and one boy, a player from my team, also juggled a soccer ball. Unfortunately, the show was performed by category, so that by the time the 20th poorly mimed song came on I was forced to excuse myself.


Study #3: Football

Perhaps more a sub-category of #2 (which itself could be put within another larger category, entitled "The Homogeneity of much of Ugandan Culture"), the viewing of professional football here is a stark example of the power an problems of globalized sport. As far as 90% of Ugandans are concerned, only two soccer teams, Arsenal and Man U are worth supporting. Another 5% root for Liverpool, though most can name at least a few of the other biggest clubs in Europe. However, the overwhelming dominance of the English Premier League attests to how the incredible reach Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has given us can simultaneously and seemingly paradoxically shrink the number of alternative choices presented to us.


Study #4: E-mail

The ultimate status symbol, people routinely ask for it even if they do not themselves own an email address or have access to a computer. I've had kids as young as six ask for mine. It is practically compulsory at the parting of a first meeting to exchange them. Yet the number or requests far exceeds the number of messages in my Inbox from these new friends. Email was the first thing that most of my students asked me to get for them. Of course, people who have rarely, if ever sat before a computer, let alone type a sentence or open a web browser, can hardly be expected to know even the basics of how to operate an email account. They think I'm beating around the bush when I demand that they at least learn correct typing methods before I show them how to sign up for email. Signing up for email addresses is like supporting soccer clubs here. Either you get your email from Yahoo or Google (although in reality the dominance of Yahoo in this respect mimics the dominance of the EPL much closer than the support for any given English club).


Study #5: Advertising

I love the Ugandan visual advertisements that are painted on building sides and storefronts. It seems better than littering surfaces with paper signs, not to mention cluttering up views with huge billboards (although there is a fair share of that as well). The names businesses choose are great as well, for a range of reasons. Shop Dot Com, a convenience store/gas station, uses its name to associate itself with the hip and modern Internet, although there isn't much beyond the name that the two share. The two local internet cafes I frequent use their names to connote superiority. Ultmate and Paramount, though not much about either could be called either. In many ways the names and advertisements of businesses here strive to put them on par with an imagined ideal that often doesn't fit with reality in any conceivable way. Perhaps its not so different from the US, but the change in perspective reveals more of the whimsical fantasy of advertising.