How may the lives of individuals and a community be impacted by a durational applied theatre and arts-based project? What lessons does it provide for arts practitioners working for social change?

Offering a unique account of the first 7 years of an on-going arts-based programme of research, creative activity and activism in a marginalized Ugandan community, this book presents the voices and insights of those involved in the form of articles and creative works.

The long-term creative partnership between European and Ugandan academics, artists and an intergenerational community of Ugandan citizens led to a series of linked, arts-led, action research and impact projects aimed at informing and empowering a slum community in the city of Jinja in eastern Uganda. The projects addressed issues of environmental concerns, gender, sexual and reproductive health, domestic violence, corruption, housing, workplace insecurity and creativity. In this book, participants respond to work carried out using anthropology, theatre, film, photography, art, poetry, dance and music, arguing collectively that creativity is a powerful route to self and community realization and human development.

The book illustrates the importance of on-going, long-term support when working with particularly disadvantaged people and demonstrates that the complex matrix of marginalization experienced by the poorest, requires responsive, multi-faceted action. This revelatory account shares failures, problems and successes in the voices of those who participated in making the work.

Jane Plastow is Professor of African Theatre at Leeds University, UK, and for 10 years was director of Leeds University Centre for African Studies. She has worked as an academic, trainer, researcher, director and theatre maker in Africa for 40 years. In 2020 and 2021 she published the 2-volume A History of Theatre in East Africa.

Katie McQuaid is Associate Professor in the School of Geography at the University of Leeds, UK. An anthropologist with expertise on climate change, gender and sexuality, ageing and intergenerationality, and forced displacement in informal urban settings, she was awarded a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship in 2019 to lead the GENERATE Project on: 'Gender, Generation and Climate Change: Creative Approaches to Building Inclusive and Climate Resilient Cities in Uganda and Indonesia'.