The Ugandan state relies on a comingling of patriarchy, heterosexism and heteronormativity to discursively construct patriotic nationalism and regulate citizenship. Essentialist binary dichotomies that conflate sex with gender order society into hierarchical positions and normative gender roles. Non-heteronormativity falls outside the idealised “charmed circle” of patriotic Ugandan nationalism. This is evident in the public rhetoric of the president and his cabinet ministers, the legislations enacted by members of parliament, and dominant decisions of the judiciary, as well as the ethos of religious clerics, cultural leaders and mainstream public media. Contests against this heteronationalism come from local, regional and global challengers. In this lecture, Dr. Naynzi employs a post-colonial perspectove to examine contradictions within the contestation against entrenching heteronationalism in contemporary Uganda.
Dr. Stella Nyanzi is fellow of the Writers-in-Exile program at the PEN-Zentrum Deutschland and a fellow at the Center for Ethics and Writing at Bard College.
With this lecture series, the Institute of Intercultural and International Studies (InIIS) and the Landeszentrale für Politische Bildung Bremen are paying tribute to the life and work of the internationally renowned peace and conflict researcher Dieter Senghaas, who has taught at the University of Bremen since 1978 and is a co-founder of the InIIS. With the “civilizational hexagon” he developed, which focuses on the possibilities of peaceful development in and between societies, he has created a paradigm that has made it into the A-level assignments of German students and into the most important textbooks on international relations. His book “Zivilisierung wider Willen” (Civilization Against Will) about the long and difficult process of building sustainable peace in Europe has been translated into numerous languages, including Chinese, Arabic and Korean. His complete works include 35 books written by him as well as 35 other books in which he was involved as editor or co-author.
