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Untangling constructive resistance in NGO’s livelihood efforts in militarised Uganda

Karembe F Ahimbisibwe
Makerere University
ORCID ID: 0000-0003-0432-4208
Untangling constructive resistance in NGO’s livelihood efforts in militarised Uganda Abstract This paper disentangles the notion constructive resistance by ordinary citizens participating in non-governmental organisations (NGO) livelihoods programmes in Uganda’s militarised-cum-neo-patrimonial rule of President Yoweri Museveni. It addresses the question of: what kinds of constructive resistance can be read in everyday (in)actions of community members participating in NGO grassroots initiatives in a militarised Ugandan polity? The paper builds on literature that first, accuses NGOs of ‘gap-filling’ and letting the state ‘off the hook’ of citizen anger; and second, sees NGOs as bottom-up platforms for learning, fostering grassroots solidarity and agency that addresses helplessness and inculcates hope among the marginalised. Using Lilja's (2022) conceptualisation of everyday resistance as avoidance, breaking and constructive, the paper suggests that NGO livelihood efforts that address precariousness and inspire hope enable the marginalised to construct alternative livelihoods and viewpoints that are both entangled with and sometimes beyond the purview of state autocracy. The paper is based on data collected from NGO beneficiaries between June and August 2019 in western Uganda and on reflections on our previous work on everyday citizenship in Uganda (eg. Ahimbisibwe, 2022b, 2022a; Ahimbisibwe et al., 2025; Kontinen & Ahimbisibwe, 2024). Findings show that NGO’s presence and initiatives in repressive settings enable citizens to a) ridicule, mock, caricature and disengage from state provided services; b) engage in ‘emancipatory’ learning routines; c) build associational networks to address poverty and related helplessness; d) complain about inadequate and selective service provision and e) inspire hope and optimism for now and the future. We argue that while these acts may be interpreted as geared towards survival and smirk of resigned conformity, they form a repertoire of indistinguishable constructive resistance strategies that poor people can summon to envision new possibilities and assert their citizenship. We conclude that in autocratic contexts where any form of dissent is treated as an existential threat to state stability and confronted with a mix of militancy and patronage, such unintentional, everyday capacities fostered by NGOs can form a layer of constructive resistance that can gradually, even if momentarily, tilt (and even reproduce) prevailing power asymmetries both at the local and national levels. Keywords: constructive resistance, NGOs, western Uganda, autocratic, Museveni References Ahimbisibwe, K. F. (2022a). Exploring obutyamye as material citizenship in Busoga subregion, Uganda. Nordic Journal of African Studies, 31(4), 329–349. https://doi.org/10.53228/njas.v31i4.962 Ahimbisibwe, K. F. (2022b). ‘Poor citizens cannot advocate’: Learning citizenship in constrained settings of Uganda [PhD Thesis, University of Jyväskylä]. https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/83967 Ahimbisibwe, K. F., Aganyira, K., Nampijja, D., Mudondo, C., & Achen, S. (2025). Rhythms of Learning in NGO-supported Village Associations in Western Uganda. Global Society, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/13600826.2025.2464580 Kontinen, T., & Ahimbisibwe, K. F. (2024). Saemaul Undong: Harbinger or mirage of hope for a rural community in Uganda? Community Development, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/15575330.2024.2438010 Lilja, M. (2022). The definition of resistance. Journal of Political Power, 15(2), 202–220. https://doi.org/10.1080/2158379X.2022.2061127
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