Exploring Obutyamye as Material Citizenship in Busoga Subregion, Uganda

This is a self-archived version of an original article. This version may differ from the original in pagination and typographic details. Author(s): Title: Year: Version: Copyright: Rights: Rights url: Please cite the original version: CC BY-NC 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ Exploring Obutyamye as Material Citizenship in Busoga Subregion, Uganda © Authors, 2022 Published version Ahimbisibwe, Karembe F. Ahimbisibwe, K. F. (2022). Exploring Obutyamye as Material Citizenship in Busoga Subregion, Uganda. Nordic Journal of African Studies, 31(4), 329-349. https://doi.org/10.53228/njas.v31i4.962 2022 Nordic Journal of African Studies – Vol 31 No 4 (2022) 329 Exploring Obutyamye as Material Citizenship in Busoga Subregion, Uganda Karembe F. Ahimbisibwe This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. DOI: 10.53228/njas.v31i4.962 Exploring Obutyamye as Material Citizenship in Busoga Subregion, Uganda Karembe F. Ahimbisibwe Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Jyväskylä, Finland hkar[email protected] Abstract This article explores how being a citizen is inexorably bound up with the resources individuals own and deploy to support livelihoods in the rural locations of postcolonial states. Drawing on the works of Kabeer (2006) and Baglioni (2016), the article zooms in on how citizenship is manifestly and inescapably material in the Busoga subregion of eastern Uganda. Data for the article were collected using qualitative methods among beneficiaries of antipoverty programmes implemented by Action for Development (ACFODE), a national non-governmental organization (NGO). Findings show that, locally, citizenship is understood as obutyamye, connoting an (un) equal experience of being in, for and with the community based on what one owns. ACFODE interventions that resonate with and address the material needs of the community have crucial implications for the localised practice of citizenship. What obutyamye portends for community belonging is discussed with a focus on how NGO antipoverty initiatives both challenge and reproduce local power asymmetries related to gender and resource ownership. In conclusion, the article highlights the crucial role NGOs’ antipoverty efforts play in strengthening people’s material well-being and, potentially, their citizenship status and agency at the small scale. Keywords: Material citizenship, antipoverty, NGO, obutyamye, Busoga, Uganda Nordic Journal of African Studies – Vol 31 No 4 (2022) 330 Exploring Obutyamye as Material Citizenship in Busoga Subregion, Uganda Karembe F. Ahimbisibwe About the author Karembe F. Ahimbisibwe is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Development Studies in the Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy at the University of Jyväskylä (Finland). He is an Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Adult and Community Education at Makerere University (Uganda). His research interests include citizenship, civil society and livelihoods, participatory learning and development, and political economy. Acknowledgements I would like to thank Academy of Finland for funding under the project “Growth into citizenship in civil society encounters” (decisions numbers 265812 and 285815) for enabling the fieldwork, and ACFODE for allowing our entry into the communities, and members of Isegero, Bubago and Bulongo villages who participated in this study. Nordic Journal of African Studies – Vol 31 No 4 (2022) 331 Exploring Obutyamye as Material Citizenship in Busoga Subregion, Uganda Karembe F. Ahimbisibwe Introduction Universalist notions of citizenship as equal status enjoyed by members of a nation-state have been challenged by emergent debates that emphasize the plurality of contexts in which citizenship occurs. This article provides an empirical examination of the notion of material citizenship in agrarian locations of East Africa. Scholarship on material citizenship has recently gained attention in sociology (Baglioni 2016; Lee and Bartlett 2021), studies of autochthony (Geschiere 2009; Lund 2011), and in gender and development studies (Kabeer 2006; Lister 1997). Whilst these studies draw from a wide range of contexts and theoretical approaches and are, therefore, inconclusive and contestable, they generally suggest that a strong link exists between citizenship and different kinds of resources, assets, possessions, and relations. For example, property such as land (Geschiere 2009; Lund 2011), objects like paperwork and documents (Carswell and De Neve 2020), and socioeconomic and cultural capital (Baglioni 2016) have been identified as central in the everyday exercise and actualization of citizenship. Similarly, several scholars have defined and described citizenship to illuminate the idea that a tight connection exists between “what we have and who we are” (Lund 2011, 71). Bryan Turner (1993), for instance, argues that the notion of citizenship encompasses a set of practices, which define a person as a member of society and, as a result, determine which resources such persons and social groups receive. More emphasis on the material nature of citizenship has been made by scholars suggesting that “it is difficult to exercise political and civil rights to the full, if hungry or homeless” (Lister 2008, 13), “since seeking redress for the violation of even the most basic of civil rights entails unaffordable costs” (Kabeer 2006, 98). These viewpoints are particularly relevant in development studies where the conceptualization of citizenship is increasingly broadened to incorporate “a form of personhood that links rights to agency” (Mukhopadhyay 2015, 613) of citizens to shape their destiny and respond to prevailing challenges (African Union Commission [AUC] 2015). Moreover, when studying citizenship in the context of developing countries, one is confronted with tales of how multiple dimensions of poverty and marginalization consign billions of people to a life of indignity (United Nations [UN] 2015; Harrison 2010), constraining their abilities to engage as citizens (Pettit 2016). Studies of gender in East Africa have, for example, noted that access to and control over resources, especially land, is at the heart of the unequal power distribution and citizenship experiences between and among men and women (Obika 2022; Bird and Espey 2010; Nyakato, Rwabukwali, and Cools 2020). In addition, a common saying in Uganda, omwavu tasinga musango (a poor person cannot win a [court] case) (Mbazira 2018; World Voices Uganda 2020), entrenches a popular perception that only the rich can get justice because they possess both the money to bribe and power to influence courts of law or any other place of arbitration. That said, there are emerging empirical and longitudinal studies that seem to disagree with the narrative of the perpetual stagnation and inertia of agrarian economies, material life, and productivity in rural Africa. These studies claim that local people’s livelihoods and wellbeing are experiencing changes and transformation as a result of incremental learning, local organization, increased productivity, and asset accumulation (for details see Brockington and Noe 2021; Holma and Kontinen 2020c). At the heart of these modest changes are lived experiences of grassroots organization and mobilization around commonly felt problems and needs. Village-based groups, local churches, women’s associations, and ethnic groups have been identified as playing crucial roles in this largely stateabsent rural modification and reconfiguration (Jones 2009). Moreover, informal spaces, par- Nordic Journal of African Studies – Vol 31 No 4 (2022) 332 Exploring Obutyamye as Material Citizenship in Busoga Subregion, Uganda Karembe F. Ahimbisibwe ticularly village-based self-help groups, have recently gained traction as conduits for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to implement antipoverty interventions (Mercer 2002; Banks, Hulme, and Edwards 2015). According to Banks, Hulme, and Edwards (2015, 713), going through “a less formalized grassrootsdriven process of ‘associationalization’” is one of the various strategies adopted by NGOs in restrictive contexts to position themselves as partners – and not adversaries – of the state in development. While much of the classic West-centric debate on citizenship has focused on conceptualizations of citizenship as equal membership and belonging to a nation state (eg., Kartal 2002; Ron 2014), in this article, I draw, instead, from scholarship that stresses a broadened understanding of citizenship as taking place in “heterogeneous sites and settings” (Clarke et al. 2014, 133) within and beyond the state as a legal and political entity. Accordingly, these studies suggest that citizenship can be perceived as a multi-layered (Yuval- Davis 1999), localized (Holma and Kontinen 2020b), flexible (Frey 2003) and gendered ( Mukhopadhyay 2015) experience underpinned by a variety of meanings and interpretations. Based on these conceptualisations, the article adopts the notion of material citizenship to conceptualise the kinds of citizenship experiences described by community members partaking in an NGO’s antipoverty interventions in rural Uganda. The notion of material citizenship is used in this article to refer to the idea that people’s everyday experiences of being a citizen are anchored and expressed in their capacities to own, expand, utilize, and draw on diverse resources to improve personal wellbeing and fulfil the obligations and responsibilities that define a citizen in a locale. The concept of resources is used broadly to encompass all things, including material assets and property, relations, and the knowledge and skills around, with, and through which rural people strengthen their capabilities to meet their livelihood needs and express themselves as citizens at the local level. The relevance of the notion of material citizenship became apparent in a study of localized citizenship in Namutumba District in the Busoga subregion of eastern Uganda. In this particular location, participants seemed to value, and enthusiastically talked about, the modest material changes experienced in their lives resulting from the livelihood training in improved farming and food security offered by Action for Development (ACFODE), a national non-governmental organization (NGO). As I explain later, participants’ viewpoints emphasised how partaking in recent livelihood trainings conducted in the community by ACFODE broadly strengthened their diverse capacities to meet material needs and perform different roles expected of them as citizens at the level. On the basis of conversations with the participants, observations of everyday life and reflections on the notion of multiple conceptualizations of citizenship, it became apparent that the kinds of reported change in material conditions at the local level needed empirical exploration. This article makes two contributions to contemporary debates in the field of citizenship and development studies. First, it introduces the notion of obutyamye to illustrate an inherently material view of citizenship in the Busoga subregion of Uganda. Second, it shows that by strengthening the material wellbeing of participants, NGO antipoverty interventions contribute to the local perception and practice of citizenship, to which (in)equality is central. As I will show, obutyamye relates to a sense of being rooted in the community by way of resource ownership, which leads some community members to share a sense of equal belonging and identity. Yet, because resources within the community are not evenly possessed, obutyamye can also refer to the inequality of the community’s poorest members, particularly women and men without property. By conceptualising material citizenship in this way, this article, then, argues that the notion of citizenship as obutyamye is inherently em- Nordic Journal of African Studies – Vol 31 No 4 (2022) 333 Exploring Obutyamye as Material Citizenship in Busoga Subregion, Uganda Karembe F. Ahimbisibwe bedded with inequalities along lines of gender and resource ownership. To explore these issues, I investigate the role played by diverse (material) resources in local understanding of citizenship and how ACFODE’s antipoverty interventions impact on the understanding and practice of everyday experience of citizenship in Busoga subregion, Uganda. The next section develops a theoretical conceptualization of material citizenship, which is followed by an introduction of the research context, highlighting the state of citizenship in Uganda and the Busoga subregion, and the research methods used. The article then presents research findings which show that resources are central in the understanding and practice of citizenship and the ways in which ACFODE interventions reinforce and challenge this understanding. This is followed by a discussion on the implications of material resources for local understanding and practice of citizenship. The article concludes with a suggestion for reconsideration of the role of the state in addressing systemic inequalities that constrain citizenship and are beyond the limited capacity of NGOs. Towards a conceptualization of material citizenship in a post-colony In this section I develop my approach to material citizenship by drawing on the work of two scholars: Kabeer’s (2006) analysis of citizenship as embedded in material relations in postcolonial societies, and Baglioni’s (2016) sociological analysis of material citizenship in the European context. I then use these ideas to reflect on the ability of NGOs’ antipoverty initiatives both to strengthen and challenge prevailing citizenship practices in an agrarian setting. Kabeer (2006) draws extensively on the evolution of Western liberal citizenship to illustrate how material resources have always been at the centre of exclusion in the theory and practice of citizenship. From the ancient city-state of Athens where the concept of citizenship first emerged, it implied “a highly bounded community” in which “only those men with the material means, personal breeding and leisure to perform their civic duties counted as citizens” (Kabeer 2006, 91–92). This understanding endured through changing cultural and historical eras as women, slaves, serfs, and other low-caste human beings were not treated as citizens on the basis of their relations with property. Kabeer further argues that a catalogue of episodic reforms and revolutions progressively challenged this exclusivist conception of citizenship around the world. In particular, the Enlightenment era, the Industrial and French Revolutions, colonialism, (neoliberal) capitalism, and constitutional democracy led to the universalization of different levels of rights for citizens across the globe. In Europe, for example, the universalist conception of liberal citizenship emerged, as Kabeer writes: (…) in the context of a series of major material and ideological upheavals (…) the decline of feudal property relations, the rise of capitalist markets and the modern state, the growing individuation of ideas of personhood, the real and ideological separation of the different spheres of society, encapsulated in the separation of the ‘public’ sphere of market, state and civil society and the ‘private’ sphere of family, kinship and community. ( Kabeer 2006, 96) She further argues that this citizenship model of “an individual as citizen, a sovereign human being, equal to all others, subject only to the laws of the land and the forces of the marketplace” (2006, 95) was transferred and bequeathed to post-colonial states without the corresponding socio-cultural systems and statecraft to enforce it. Moreover, the postcolonies were under traditional precapitalist systems where “claims to resources were generally grounded in variations of the ‘moral Nordic Journal of African Studies – Vol 31 No 4 (2022) 334 Exploring Obutyamye as Material Citizenship in Busoga Subregion, Uganda Karembe F. Ahimbisibwe economy’” (2006, 97). In Uganda, like most sub-Saharan Africa countries, the ‘moral economy’ was characterized by hierarchical sociopolitical relations (Babikwa 2004), although the communal way of life encapsulated in “the extended notion of family gave a wide range of kinfolk, neighbours and villagers, some degree of economic responsibility for each other” (Kabeer 2006, 95). The result of this transfer was “a fragmented notion of citizenship that reproduced, rather than disrupt, the socially ascribed statuses of kinship, religion, ethnicity, race, caste and gender” (2006, 97). Baglioni’s (2016, 72) material approach to citizenship is shaped by a European liberal individualist context. His approach aims “to show what someone can do starting from his/ her own resources (the capitals) and from those provided by national and local institutions (the rights)”. Using a sociological lens, Baglioni argues that a conceptualization of citizenship as juridical status in a society that is increasingly tilting towards government cuts and the shrinkage of welfare states is inadequate. To this end, he suggests a material approach to analyse how, in the era of a “spread of precariousness” (2016, 70), people use state-granted status and rights together with personal capabilities to live meaningfully and practically in society. Baglioni defines material citizenship as the “individual capability of a citizen or a group of people who share the same social condition to put into practice citizenship status in the areas of property, work, health and education, consumption and information” (2016, 71). Central to Baglioni’s material approach to citizenship is the notion of capitals, which he describes as “socially enabling resources that help to define persons, allowing them to determine kinds of action, of reflection or of status, to a degree that varies according to what is available to the individual” (2016, 76). Drawing on Bourdieu (1986), he categorizes capitals into four types. Economic capital is based on personal ownership of economic resources that are easily translated into monetary terms. Cultural capital embodies the cognitive resources that qualify a person’s cultural level, such as educational qualifications, linguistic ability, cultural interests, aesthetic preferences, acquired knowledge and skills. Social capital entails the relations that a person enters into or can mobilize, such as friendships, contacts, influences, social favours, and duties. Finally, symbolic capital is a person’s social recognition, which is derived from combining a person’s ability to enter into mutual relations with people who possess similar capitals ( Baglioni 2016). Therefore, Baglioni’s treatment of capitals as the crux of an individual’s mode of living in any society resonates with Kabeer’s (2006) notion of ‘moral economy’ on which rural communities rely to support livelihoods in postcolonial states like Uganda. For example, capitals are presented as the incentive that encourages individuals to “put their own ‘being in society’ into practice” (Baglioni 2016, 79) beyond the institutional rights. In summary, the conceptualization of material citizenship applied here combines the perspective of the historical evolution of citizenship wherein property has played diverse roles (Kabeer 2006) and sociological analysis of capitals (Baglioni 2016). This guides analysis of the notions of citizenship emerging from people’s descriptions of what citizenship entails, and how NGOs’ anti-poverty interventions strengthen notions of citizenship in such settings in rural Uganda. The conceptual framework, thus, alludes to citizenship as tied up with both the historical and material realities from which it emerges, on the one hand, and the ability to mobilize, expand, and rely on diverse capitals, which is necessary for recognition as a member of the community, on the other. This conceptualization becomes particularly relevant when analysing citizenship in fragile postcolonial states like Uganda. Nordic Journal of African Studies – Vol 31 No 4 (2022) 335 Exploring Obutyamye as Material Citizenship in Busoga Subregion, Uganda Karembe F. Ahimbisibwe Research context: Citizenship in Uganda, Busoga and ACFODE interventions In this section, I illustrate how citizenship in Uganda has historically evolved in communal and material terms and show how this manifests in present day Busoga subregion. I also give a brief explanation of ACFODE and its interventions to strengthen local citizens’ capacity to meet material needs. Prior to the introduction of the liberal model of citizenship during colonialism, Ugandan society was organized as constellations of state and stateless communities (Babikwa 2004). During colonialism, these differentially governed constellations were (forcefully) merged and reconfigured into a republic with attendant ideas of constitutional democracy and citizenship rights. However, the colonial reforms did not turn Uganda into a pure Western satellite state, as traditional practices continued to grow alongside western capitalist ideals. This gave birth to a contemporary state and citizenship regime that “represents an amalgam of elements of the pre-co- lonial, colonial and post-colonial mind-sets” (Babikwa 2004, 41). For example, while the 1995 Constitution of Uganda is clear on the political-legal status of citizenship and, in theory, guarantees a host of equal rights, including property rights (see Const. of Republic of Uganda [RoU], Ch. 3), the practice of citizenship remains saliently different. Firstly, traditional norms and practices that treat women unequally (Tamale 2020) and agrarian poverty, with over 75% of the population mired in subsistence agriculture (National Planning Authority [NPA] 2020), have persisted. Secondly, the National Resistance Movement (NRM) regime under Museveni has adopted a “neoliberal narrative that challenges citizens to take responsibility [for] developing themselves and families out of poverty” (Ahimbisibwe and Kontinen 2021, 37), rather than looking to the state for solutions. Thirdly, the Ugandan state has, over time, adopted multiple tactics to manage, control, confuse, and suppress different forms of citizen dissent (see Tapscott 2021; Curtice and Behlendorf 2021). These circumstances mean that the idea of citizenship in Uganda is focused more on localized obligations and less on (legal political) rights ((Ndidde, Ahimbisibwe and Kontinen 2020). Subsequently, Alava et al. (2020, 57) have suggested that in contemporary Uganda, citizenship “manifests on one hand, in the upfront contestation and mobilization of visible opposition figures with increased popular support and, on the other, continuously in mundane everyday life where problems are solved and shared issues are addressed together” in line with histories and contexts of ethnicity, gender, and other issues. For instance, a typical citizen in a rural area is defined not by the rights they enjoy but by their hours of hard work: toiling in the fields, caring for the sick, collecting water, and entering into mutual networks with neighbours and co-villagers to expand opportunities for survival. In this context, spaces of affiliation and communal identity – and, over the last four decades, NGOs – continue to be critical elements in how poor people organize themselves to survive and fulfil their obligations and responsibilities in Uganda (see Holma and Kontinen 2020c). Busoga in eastern Uganda bears the characteristics of citizenship described in the foregoing discussion. According to official government reports, the region is one of the poorest in the country, with poverty standing at 42% compared to the national level of 21.4% (NPA 2020, 7). The region is also home to cultural beliefs and practices (RoU 2020) that differentially treat men and women. Moreover, a 2016 report by the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) profiles Namutumba District, the location of this study, as highly vulnerable to socioeconomic factors such as “power relationships and institutions or cultural aspects of a social system” (RoU 2016, 31) that, among other features, frame female children as sources of wealth (New Vision 2011). Ac- Nordic Journal of African Studies – Vol 31 No 4 (2022) 336 Exploring Obutyamye as Material Citizenship in Busoga Subregion, Uganda Karembe F. Ahimbisibwe cording to local media reports, this mindset, exacerbated by poverty and soaring population growth, has led to high drop-out rates from school, especially among girls, leading to teenage pregnancies, early marriages and gender-based violence (see for example, New Vision 2011; Daily Monitor 2020; Chimpreports 2021). It is against this background that NGOs like ACFODE implement development interventions that aim to improve the material wellbeing and household incomes of poor citizens in a bid to fight poverty and its attendant consequences in the community. ACFODE is a national gender advocacy NGO with a long history of implementing interventions that empower communities. It has been at the forefront of championing the gender agenda in line with its vision of “a just society where gender equality is a reality” (ACFODE 2015). Established in 1986, donorfunded ACFODE is one of the largest NGOs operating in the four regions of the country, implementing interventions in thematic areas of governance and citizen participation, women’s economic empowerment, genderbased violence, and community livelihoods ( ACFODE 2015). In an attempt to promote citizen agency in Uganda’s restrictive and volatile politics, ACFODE has, over time, adopted an approach that seeks a delicate balance between national level advocacy on good governance and community development programmes (Kontinen and Ndidde 2020). For example, while intent on transforming unequal gender structures, ACFODE realized the importance of strategically engaging and integrating men and cultural and religious leaders into training sessions and other activities in order to respond to existing social power patterns in communities (Kontinen and Ndidde 2020). In Namutumba District, ACFODE implemented a three-year (2012- 2014) livelihood programme that strengthened farmers’ knowledge and skills, in order to achieve, improve, and maintain food security, production, storage, value addition, and marketing (ACFODE 2015). Using existing village-based self-help groups, the NGO trained participants to diversify household income and address malnutrition. Trained members were supplied with simple farm implements such as “groundnut shellers, cassava chippers, spray pumps to enhance their food production, fetch better prices and improve livelihoods” (ACFODE 2015, 41). Methods This article is based on data collected for the larger project Growth into Citizenship (GROW) (2017-2019) that was “interested in local definitions of ‘citizenship’ and what role, if any, NGOs played in the everyday life of the community members” (Holma and Kontinen 2020a, 7). I collected the data together with my co-researcher, Alice, in March 2017 in three rural villages in Namutumba District. As in most agrarian communities in Uganda, community members own and live on their own (small) pieces of land on which they practise subsistence farming as their main livelihood activity. Thirty-two (4 males, 28 females) community members participated in this study and were purposively selected based on the criteria of having been active in implementing ACFODE knowledge and skills. The study was guided by open-ended and conversational themes that addressed local understandings of citizenship and practices and spaces of belonging, participation, and identity. The main intention was to observe, capture, and illustrate stories of what being a citizen entailed in everyday life of the community that had benefited from a three-year livelihoods project implemented by ACFODE between 2012-2014. The study conducted interviews and participant observation in informal and spontaneous activities in which we found the participants engaged, and in touring projects around participants’ homesteads. This interaction was useful for creating and strengthening the atmosphere of honesty, mutuality, and conviviality vital to the successful implementation Nordic Journal of African Studies – Vol 31 No 4 (2022) 343 Exploring Obutyamye as Material Citizenship in Busoga Subregion, Uganda Karembe F. Ahimbisibwe with the grain’ (Kelsall 2011) of grassroots, informal associations seem to provide an appropriate route. These historically tried and tested practices offer more effective mechanisms for reaching the least privileged and increasing the agency of the rural poor to gain financial and material empowerment that positively impacts on gendered relations. When I asked a woman what her future entailed, she replied, “God willing, I will continue using the knowledge received from all these [selfhelp and NGO] groups to keep bettering my family.” Moreover, while this study was conducted three years after the project had ended, participants constantly referred to the NGO as omuzaire waife (‘our caring parent’) in apparent acknowledgement of the positive material changes it had introduced to their lives. Conclusion First, the article has introduced and conceptualized a localized notion of material citizenship, to add to the other forms of everyday citizenship in the “context of development interventions in sub-Saharan Africa” (Holma, Kontinen, and Blanken-Webb 2018, 228). Using the notion of obutyamye, I have illustrated how, in specific locations of Uganda, citizenship is broadly construed as being in, for, and with the community, based on the diverse material assets and forms of capital on which individuals draw to meet their family needs and communal obligations. This article has also shown how various resources such as land, household items, social relations, and knowledge and skills are crucial in defining and enhancing one’s personhood and agency to act as a citizen, knitting the community into a web of networked, reciprocal, and mutual belonging and participation. Moreover, the article has analysed the impact of NGOs in strengthening localized notions of citizenship in a setting where structural, national, and local hierarchies of power remain profound constraints on the practice of citizenship, especially among women and landless men. Second, the article has highlighted the inescapable connection between local people’s material wellbeing and their extant citizenship experiences. For instance, while post-colonial states like Uganda grant ‘universalized’ liberal rights to undifferentiated citizens, local communities often translate (and sometimes overrule) these rights to suit their existing material realities and circumstances. Thus, the notion of material citizenship articulated in this article is neither about advancing individual’s self-interest nor promoting exclusive power of community. Rather, it is premised on an endless search for socioeconomic improvement and communal co-existence among people who share physical residency and take care of shared interests. This involves the (re-)negotiation of complex social structures and dynamics using the available material resources and social relations. Last, material citizenship espoused by the idea of obutyamye contributes to a more contextual understanding of the dynamics of NGOs’ attempts to strengthen citizenship in the constrained settings of postcolonial societies like Uganda. I have demonstrated that, rather than relying on statist rights, rural people depend on local mobilization and NGO antipoverty interventions to improve their status and agency to address individual and collective challenges. Self-help groups and NGOs’ socioeconomic empowerment programmes are thus vital platforms and avenues for marginalized groups to acquire material assets and build social relations that change perceptions and strengthen practices of citizenship. Women, for example, gradually become citizens in, for, and with the community on account of their ability to acquire and own material assets and meet community expectations and responsibilities that society considers vital citizenship characteristics. Hence, the material improvements and agency ordinary citizens acquire from such NGO interventions, even though not overly transformative, should not be underestimated. Nordic Journal of African Studies – Vol 31 No 4 (2022) 344 Exploring Obutyamye as Material Citizenship in Busoga Subregion, Uganda Karembe F. Ahimbisibwe That said, the limited operational capacity of NGOs and self-help groups to reach the poorest sections of the community and address systemic problems that constrain their participation in community development programmes remains a challenge. Ultimately, more equitable development that leaves no citizen behind can only be realised through state intervention because it is the state that has the capacity and obligation to address such structural inequalities. Nordic Journal of African Studies – Vol 31 No 4 (2022) 345 Exploring Obutyamye as Material Citizenship in Busoga Subregion, Uganda Karembe F. 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