Performing Identities in Urban Spaces; Kampala, Uganda - Royal ...

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histories, thus avoiding any narrow direction in which using only a gatekeepers’ contacts may incur. At all times, when approaching participants we ensured written or verbal consent was granted. In so doing, we firstly revealed a little about ourselves, presented clearly the aims of our fieldwork and the intended focus of discussions. We explained our commitment to confidentiality and their right to withdraw at any time throughout the research process. We further clarified the expected duration of interviews or focus groups and ensured every participant understood all of the above before proceeding. It was important to interfere as little as possible with the ordinary, everyday running of the school, University and Church. To gain as true an insight into different experience as possible, but also to not be a burden the institutional management or obstruct pupils’ learning, this research was conducted flexibly and adhered to no rigid sampling strategy. Interviews were conducted in free periods and break times, with those pupils and students who volunteered. Wider Significance This research is not intended to be representative of any group other than those who participated in it. In fact, it is written as evidence of the multiplicity of peoples experiences, as an example of the ways in which different individuals experience and understand their identifications and their position in society in different ways. 5
Key findings: The increasing focus on identity in western academia is indicative of its importance; influential and nuanced work puts identity and the individual at the centre of human, social and cultural geographical concern (Hall 1992; Butler 1990; Valentine 2001; Pain 2001; Little 2002; Jackson 2005). Poststructuralists’ have moved away from static and essentialist notions of identity, towards an understanding of self that is socially constructed, shifting and multiple (Little 2002:35), explaining the ways in which identities are fragmented, dislocated and de-centred, rather than stable, single and integrated, influenced by multiple cultural landscapes (Hall 1992: 274). Identities are constructed and transformed by dominant categories of gender, class, age and faith; they are a site of constant negotiation, affected by expectations of ‘appropriate’ and ‘inappropriate’ behaviours or dress. The role of Space and Institutions Though conventionally institutions such as schools and universities have been thought of as stable, built environments made of bricks and mortar, more recent studies reconceptualise institutions as networks of resources, knowledge and power; which both transform and are transformed by the people and places which create and sustain them (Valentine 2001:141-2). The school as a social institution is understood, therefore, not as a bounded entity, but as a network of power relations; between the students, their families, the staff, the government and the spaces they interact in and across. Institutions, such as schools, become characterised by power relationships of control and discipline (Holloway and Hubbard 2001:187) and thus (re)produce social hierarchies and inequalities. Within institutions particular behaviours and attitudes become “predictable and routine” and are thus institutionalised (Goetz 1997:5). Social and feminist geographers are interested in the ways in which identities and spaces are constructed and gendered through performance (Little 2002:36). Social identities and subjectivities are “intimately tied to the spaces through which people practice and perform them” and are constructed in relation to systems of authority which mark out the behaviours and identities which are deemed “appropriate” and “inappropriate” (Del Casino 2009:203). Powerful agents in society control the way spaces are constructed and as such they reflect the structural hierarchies of society 6
Page 1 and 2: Summer 2011 FIELDWORK REPORT: PERFO
Page 3 and 4: Research Site The Ugandan capital c
Page 5: At St Annes, interviews were conduc
Page 9 and 10: to undergraduate and postgraduate s
Page 11 and 12: the ways in which staff and pupils
Page 13 and 14: The Experience of Home University a
Page 15 and 16: creates a cyclical problem as girls
Page 17 and 18: Fig 1: 16
Page 19 and 20: Fig 3: 18
Page 21 and 22: Fig 5: Limitations The method used
Page 23 and 24: Getting acquainted with our surroun
Page 25 and 26: One of us was almost mugged in the
Page 27 and 28: Kane, E. (1995)Seeing for Yourself:
Page 29: APPENDIX 1: 28

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