More than entertainment: popular culture and entrepreneurship among urban youth in Uganda

project summary

The project is an investigation of the role of popular culture in young people’s lives in two Ugandan cities. Although the majority of Ugandan youths are faced with uncertain futures and social marginalisation, many are occupied with popular culture, and invest time and resources into fashion, music, film and dances; yet popular culture is often overlooked in development work and research aiming at unleashing the positive potentials of the youth towards development. This project will address this void to enhance policy making in the areas of youth and culture. The objective is to achieve a better understanding of the dynamics between popular culture and young people’s cultural entrepreneurship. How do youths use popular culture to shape their actions, values and future life-courses? How does popular culture work as a space for entrepreneurship and social mobility? And how is popular culture used by other actors to mobilise the youth? The data collection method will be ethnographic fieldwork; participant observation, interviews, and participatory processes of visual productions. The study’s argument will be developed through participation in seminars, conferences, and other forums. The outputs will be one Ph.D. dissertation, comprising of 3-4 articles published in academic journals; one report and two dissemination workshops for local stakeholders in Uganda; 6 short films to be broadcasted on Danish TV and one book or website with photo diaries published for educational use.