Challenging the local logics of oppression in times of post-colonial amnesia – a study of Ugandan LGBT+ activism in digital media spaces

Cecilia Strand

Information Technology for Development, 2024, vol. 30, issue 2, 329-350

Abstract: Against the backdrop of an increasingly repressive environment, the study explores to what degree five established LGBT+ organizations use self-controlled digital spaces, Twitter and Facebook, during one month in 2022 to expose and challenge constructs that rationalize oppression of Ugandan LGBT+. The analysis revealed that digital media spaces were not used to challenge the local logics of oppression or contemporary processes sustaining oppression. Instead, spaces, often displaying a conspicuously uniform Western sexual rights language, focused on providing digital services and/or notification of offline services to the community and promoting the individual organization. The adoption of Western sexual rights campaign language, including using LGBT+ as identity labels to communicate Ugandan same-sex desires and gender identities, could be explained by the community’s dependency on international resources. The study’s contribution lies in its astute reminder – that the realization of digital spaces’ emancipatory potential is dependent on the political economy of the activists' context.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1080/02681102.2024.2346917

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