Evelyn Namakula Mayanja

Research Interests and Current Research

I am an interdisciplinary scholar passionate about global peace and security, with focus on Africa. My research follows trajectories of critical theory, decoloniality, phenomenology, Afrocentricity and African Indigenous philosophy to explore issues around international political economy of resource; wars, conflicts and cooperation in natural resource sectors; race; politics; and governance in global systems of accumulation and asymmetric international relations. My research centers on the agency, interests, human rights and human security of those marginalized by colonial and neocolonial systems of oppression, resource looting, environmental destruction, neoliberal authoritarianism and political repression. I am currently researching mineral resource-based wars/armed conflict and the extraction of the minerals for green/renewable energy, and the consequences of destruction (community, socio-economic, and environmental), cultural obliteration, land grabbing, displacement, and peacekeeping in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). I am keenly interested in African personhood, cultures, ontologies, axiologies, epistemologies, traditions and histories as sine qua nons to relocating and recentering Africa’s agency in issues around peace and security; natural resource governance; environmental sustainability;  politics and economics; and the multidimensions of justice (reparation, restitution, restoration and repatriation) necessary to decolonize and to reclaim Africa’s authenticity.

I am also interested in critical and Ubuntu pedagogies, particularly questions around decolonization, academic independency, race, systemic and epistemic oppression in higher education. My work on these themes of teaching/research interests is covered in peer-reviewed journals and online articles and book chapters.  I believe that the world will know real peace, security and prosperity when the power of love, knowledge of one’s mortality, awe and care for the dignity of every person and the environment will overcome the love for power,  greed, the illusion of immortality, environmental destruction,  and the dehumanization of those whose  rights, voice, place and space to prosper  is denied – the historical and contemporary wretched of the earth.

Selected Professional Associations

• International Studies Association
• African Feminist Initiative
• Great Lakes Leaders Initiative
• American Academy of Religion
• United for Mining Justice
• International mediators

Courses

• HRSJ 2401: Political Repression, Impacts and Responses
• HRSJ 3301: Race, Racialization and Human Rights
• HRSJ 3001: Special Topic in Human Rights
• HRSJ 3305: Anti-Black Racism and Human Rights

Selected Publications

“The Quest for Africanizing Qualitative Inquiry: A Pathway to Methodological Innovation”. In …. Pathways to Alternative Epistemologies in Africa. 2021, 35-60

“Theology and Peacemaking in Africa.” In Bongmba Elias, Ed. The Routledge Handbook of African Theology, New York: Routledge. 2020, 381-398.

“Biblical and dogmatic theology on Personhood: Application to Africa’s milieu.” In Bongmba Elias, Ed. The Routledge Handbook of African Theology, New York: Routledge. 2020, 462-499.

“Hear My Tears: Narratives of War and Resilience by the Women and Children of Congo”. In Reimer Laura E., Katerina Standish, and Charles Thiessen, Eds. Expanding Modes of Enquiry: Research from the Mauro Institute. New York: Lexington. 2019, 97-111.

“Revolution and Women’s Liberation go Together’ Thomas Sankara and the Burkina Faso Experience.” In Amber Murrey, Ed. A certain amount of madness: The life politics and legacies of Thomas Sankara. London: Pluto Press, 2018, 209-221.

“AIDS, national security and political leadership in Sub-Saharan Africa.” In Azetsop, Jacqueline, Ed. HIV and AIDS in Africa: Christian Reflection, Public Health, Social Transformation, New York: Orbis Books.

“Democratic political leadership and governance: Envisioning a post 2015 development Agenda in Africa, Uganda as a case study”. In Andrews, Nathan, KhalemaN. E., and Assie-Lumumba N. Eds. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Retrospect: Africa’s Development Beyond. New York: Springer, 2015, 299-246.

Online, News Papers and Media interviews

Creating healthy communities is our biggest challenge. Winnipeg Free Press. Jan. 4, 2021. https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/special/coronavirus/creating-healthy-communities-is-our-biggest-challenge-573523392.html

“DRC: An open later to UN Secretary General and the Prime Minister of Canada”. Pambazuka News. 2017, Issue 809 Feb 16, https://www.pambazuka.org/human-security/drc-open-later-un-secretary-general-and-prime-minister-canada

“Trump order on conflict minerals would send warlords carte blanche signal, say critics”. CBC News. March 18, 2017. http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-conflict-minerals-congo-1.4025968

“Congo killings highlight need for change: Canada is the country to overhaul peacekeeping missions”. Winnipeg Free Press. Dec. 15, 2017. https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/congo-killings-highlight-need-for-change-464507813.html

“The quest for peace leadership: Remembering Archbishop Munzihirwa. Pambazuka”. 2015. Issue 749 (online) http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category.php/features/95934/print

“Presidents in designer suits, citizens in rags Burundi, a mirror of the leadership crisis and legacies of war in the African Great Lakes”. Pambazuka. 2015, Issue 727 (Online). http://new.pambazuka.org/?q=en/article/presidents-designer-suits-citizens-rags

“Rape of bodies, rape of resources, rape of a nation: the last best chance for sustainable peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)”. Pambazuka .2014, Issue 691 (online) http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category.php/comment/92824 “Preventing the oil and gas resource curse in East Africa”, Pambazuka. 2014, Issue 697 (online) http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category.php/features/93101

“City activist decries mineral-linked genocide”. Winnipeg Free Press. April 19,2014. https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/city-activist-decries-mineral-linked-genocide-255853211.html