University of British Columbia students, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs.
As one of his first major policies, US President Donald Trump enacted massive freezes in US foreign aid. In the aftermath, the global humanitarian landscape has undergone significant disruption. As one of the largest providers of aid, American withdrawal from aid provision has left many partners, including Uganda, seeking alternative routes. However, aid dependency, when coupled with ineffective or uninformed foreign interventions, has left many communities frustrated and disillusioned. Our recent fieldwork in Northern Uganda, conducted as part of our capstone project at the University of British Columbia’s School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, revealed widespread concerns about how foreign aid is allocated and implemented. Our main research focus is on the impact of armed conflict on family structures, specifically with regards to social cohesion..
Uganda is a colorful and multicultural country, consisting of a variety of peoples and languages and customs. As foreign researchers, we strongly believe that one must be aware of their own positionality and status as an outsider when making observations on another culture. One must not make unfounded assumptions about the topic based on uninformed or mis- contextualized conceptions. This aspect is further emphasized when one takes into consideration the global North-South divide. Despite the team’s varied backgrounds, as students at a Canadian university, we are by default Global North researchers. While two out of four members are from the Global South, neither of them is from Uganda. As such, we are essentially a team of foreign researchers. Throughout our research and fieldwork, we have done our best to act accordingly to this foreign identity by keeping our positionality in mind and not superimposing our own ideals over local norms and lived experiences. However, we have found that this mindset sometimes did not translate into an angle of approach for past aid efforts.