Education as identity: The scaffolding of “being educated” in eastern Uganda

Jones, Ben (2023) Education as identity: The scaffolding of “being educated” in eastern Uganda. American Ethnologist, 50 (2). pp. 285-296. ISSN 0094-0496

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Abstract

In eastern Uganda “being educated” is an identity that people work on throughout their lives. They develop an educated identity through participating on committees, educating their children, and subscribing to a recognizable set of behaviors. Education is a “scaffold” that can be built up or knocked down, one that is related to, but broader than, experiences of going to school or being young. Moreover, “being educated” has ongoing political advantages: those who are seen as more educated tend to prevail in disputes and fare better with various authorities, and they are more likely to benefit from government and NGO schemes. Examples from different social situations highlight the need for an ethnographically open, relationally aware, and politically attuned approach to what people are doing when claiming an educated identity.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	There is a corrigendum for this article which corrects an editing error in the referencing; the content of the article is not affected. See: https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/amet.13184 Further information: Ethnographic material for this article was gathered from 2018 to 2022. An earlier version of the article was presented at a British Academy virtual seminar. Funding information: Fieldwork was funded by a Mid‐Career Fellowship from the British Academy (MD170053) and a further grant also from the British Academy (YF190162). would like to thank Sheila Aikman for comments on an earlier draft. I would also like to thank the editors of and three anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts. American Ethnologist
Uncontrolled Keywords:	education,identity,politics,school,teso,uganda,youth,anthropology,4* ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3300/3314
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Global Development (formerly School of International Development)
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Heritage and History Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Gender and Development Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > The State, Governance and Conflict
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	20 Dec 2022 17:33
Last Modified:	10 Jun 2024 08:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/90341
DOI:	10.1111/amet.13151

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