Markets and monarchs: indigenous urbanism in postcolonial Kampala

Although small in number, indigenous urban settlements were of substantial social, cultural and political significance in precolonial Africa. However, many studies of urbanisation on the continent begin with colonisation. As a result, scholars have tended to overemphasise the influence of the colonisers, precluding an analysis of the ability of indigenous populations to resist, reimagine and remake colonial visions of urban life. This paper examines the historical relationship between the Baganda people and the Ugandan capital. Kampala was planned as the commercial centre of British colonial enterprise in Uganda; however, it developed in a region with an indigenous history of urban settlement. The Kibuga – the capital of Buganda and seat of the king – was once the most populous urban agglomeration in the East African interior. Drawing upon a combination of archival research, life history interviews and an ethnographic study of a central marketplace, I argue that while many of the categories and divisions of colonial rule are still visible in Kampala, the Baganda have engaged in collective subjective practices to reimagine and remake urban life, centered on the role of the monarchy. These practices illustrate both the opportunities and limitations of ‘indigenous urbanism’ as a response to the historical subjugation of indigenous populations