Listening to the Voiceless: A Qualitative Inquiry into Rural Development Strategies and Indigenous Empowerment for Uganda´s Batwa amidst Eviction and Globalisation

Filippo De Faccio

Bachelor's thesis

Abstract:

The Batwa in Uganda are an indigenous minority group facing a silent humanitarian crisis ever since the 1991 gazettement of Ugandan forests into national parks, which triggered their never-compensated eviction. The eviction disrupted their former hunger-gathering lifestyle and trapped the Batwa in the vicious cycle of poverty perpetuated by their landlessness and social marginalisation. The aim of this study is to assess rural development and indigenous empowerment strategies in the post-eviction and globalisation landscape to determine guidelines for future interventions addressing Batwa’s plight and recommend policy improvements. This research is based on semi-structured interviews with Batwa community members, non-governmental organisations (Batwa- and non-Batwa-run), and governmental institutions. The interviews examine from different perspectives how Batwa’s culture, livelihoods and welfare have evolved as a result of the political scene, education, humanitarian and development actions, and globalisation, highlighting the faults and gaps of existing stakeholders’ strategies while echoing unheard appeals from Batwa communities. The study concludes that being landless and stuck in feudal arrangements, the Batwa are currently exploited as cheap labourers and have become an asset in the aid business. They are heavily discriminated against and lack access to public services and governmental programmes. The study unveils globalisation's duality, which is evident in both the expanded networking opportunities it offers and the risk of cultural assimilation. Batwa’s authentic indigenous heritage is, in fact, highly endangered, while their culture is commodified by non-Batwa tourist businesses. Education’s role also showed to be ambivalent, featuring an empowering potential despite its colonial influences. Embezzlement intrinsic to neo-colonial aid chains, project unsustainability, and competition among NGOs emerged in the analysis of humanitarian and development activities. This paper recommends the involvement of Batwa communities in forest management, the arrangement of extracurricular cultural activities and inter-tribal exchanges in schools, the affirmation of Batwa-run non-governmental organisations in the relationships with international donors in aid chains, and rigorous Monitoring and Evaluation systems.

Keywords

marginalisation, neo-colonisation, quality of life, ethnocultural resilience, humanitarian crisis, indigenous knowledge valorisation, livelihood evolution

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 20. 4. 2024

Thesis defence

• Supervisor: Ing. Jiří Hejkrlík, Ph.D.
• Reader: Jana Mazancová, Ph.D.

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences

Bachelor programme:
International Cooperation in Agricultural and Rural Development