Reimagining justice: vernacular storytelling, development and human rights in Uganda

Practitioners in the development and human rights sectors are often deeply committed to justice and social change. But the logics of the organisations and networks they are embedded in can limit the kinds of political claims they find plausible and feel confident making. These limitations can be understood within the framework of epistemic injustice, a body of work within political theory which shows how those with most influence over shared epistemic resources curate them – often unconsciously – in ways that exclude concepts apt to describe marginalised experiences. In this thesis, I argue that such ‘hermeneutical injustices’ relate not just to descriptions of lived experience, but to marginalised epistemes and interpretative traditions that are excluded from normative regimes such as human rights and development. I demonstrate how vernacular storytelling practices can be used to help social justice activists in Uganda reimagine justice and communicate across difference. I use the European folktale Red Riding Hood and Ugandan ogre stories and origin stories – notably Nambi and Kintu – to explore questions related to gender, agency and the nature of political authority. Participants’ contributions are informed by their familiarity with some of the traditions and epistemes neglected in development and human rights work, and by insights from their work and activism about the logics of the bureaucracies and networks that need to change. My study moves beyond abstract thinking about rival epistemologies, worldviews and perspectives, and general calls for cross-cultural dialogue. In my fieldwork I bridge theory and practice, developing and testing a concrete mechanism for bringing people together in ways that disrupt dominant ways of thinking and help them reimagine justice. I propose vernacular storytelling as an alternative hermeneutical practice: that is, rather than telling each other about different knowledge systems, participants engage with different interpretative practices in order to understand differently together.