Kampala
Authors: Monteith William 
Published: April 2023

Located on the northern shores of Lake Victoria (also known as Lake Nalubaale), the city of Kampala was founded on a series of hills, each of which has functioned as a panopticon from which different authorities have sought to project their own visions of order over the surrounding valleys. The foundational hills of Mengo, Rubaga, and Namirembe were settled in the late nineteenth century by the Buganda monarchy, the Catholic Mission (Péres Blanches), and the Anglican Church Missionary Society, respectively. The capital of the Buganda region (the Kibuga, or seat of the king) was previously a “proto-city” that was moved upon the ascension of each new ruler until it finally settled in Mengo in 1885. At the time, this settlement was considered the most populous urban agglomeration in the East African interior, connected to the surrounding region by an elaborate network of roads. However, its development was disrupted by the arrival of the Imperial British East African Company (IBEAC) in 1890, and the erection of a British fort on a fourth hill (now “Old Kampala”). The Baganda (people of Buganda) subsequently lengthened the name of the hill to Kampala Alizala Bigwe (“the white man’s selection of Kampala will result in strife”). The British colonial project in Uganda was enshrined in the 1900 Buganda Agreement, which divided crown (British) from mailo (Baganda) land. The Agreement gave British administrators the authority to establish an exclusive urban enclave governed by British colonial laws on the understanding that the Kibuga was to remain the exclusive domain of the indigenous population. However, despite attempts to separate the indigenous and the colonial capitals, the Kibuga was quickly surrounded by the British township, which mobilized indigenous labor through land expropriations and poll taxes. Rather than a straightforward case of displacement, one of the legacies of the Buganda Agreement in contemporary Kampala is a series of land tenure agreements that are among the most complex in the world, giving rise to a form of rentier capitalism in which indigenous landlords exploit indigenous and non-indigenous tenants. In the early twenty-first century, Kampala’s hills are inhabited not by missionaries and colonialists but by politicians, entrepreneurs, and development consultants, all of which project their own visions of power over the contemporary city. As the city of Kampala has expanded beyond its foundational hills, the literature on Kampala has evolved beyond an initial concern with sanitation and social order toward a broader set of inquiries centering questions of gender, land, livelihood, politics, infrastructure, and waste. This bibliography attempts to capture continuity and change within the scholarly literature. Rather than a comprehensive review, it aims to illustrate the evolution of different strands of debate on Kampala while foregrounding the emergence of a new generation of scholars at institutions including Makerere University’s Urban Action Lab. The bibliography proceeds in seven sections, covering Planning and Service Provision; Land and Housing; Politics and Protest; Gender and Livelihood; Transport and (Im)mobility; Waste, Water, and Sanitation; and Climate and Energy.