The dilemma of youth empowerment in Uganda: interrogating the mindset question

Abstract

In Uganda, youth account for more than half of the population and empowerment of this youthful population is at the forefront of the agenda for the government of Uganda and development partners. Literature on empowerment programs in Uganda indicates an appreciation of the role of mindset in Youth Empowerment, but the factors underlying and driving this mindset are not well articulated; and this presents a dilemma for youth empowerment programing. I proposed a conceptualization of youth mindsets from Bakhtin’s Dialogical theory of mind which looks at the stories people tell and the language they use to tell them as appropriated from the narratives existing within their social-cultural setting. I sought to answer two specific research questions including: 1) what are the salient narratives within the social cultural context surrounding youth empowerment in Buganda region, as expressed in the life stories of youth empowerment program beneficiaries 2) How are youth positioned in these narratives? Based on an interpretivist and specifically a social constructionist paradigm, I used a qualitative research approach to delve into the meanings that youth take on in constructing their empowerment journeys. I elicited the life stories of seven youth that were beneficiaries of three youth empowerment programs in Buganda region and proceeded to analyze these life stories using structural narrative analysis and Dialogical narrative analysis in order to answer the specific research questions. Findings show that narratives of resilience, Identity and validation were salient within the social cultural context of youth empowerment in Buganda. By way of positioning; youth sometimes protested against or defied these narratives, redefined the narratives or internalized the narratives fully with varying outcomes. This study indicates that scholars and practitioners seeking to understand youth mindsets need to recognize them as transient rather than fixed, and emerging from sets of social-cultural narratives available to the youth in question.