Journal Articles

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12504/59

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Browsing Journal Articles by Author "Isiko, Alexander Paul"

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    Between tradition and modernity : Imbalu of the Bamasaba and human rights discourse
    (Jumuga Journal of Education, Oral Studies, and Human Sciences (JJEOSHS), 2025-09-01) Wabwire, Juliet Nambuba; Wabyanga, Robert Kuloba; Isiko, Alexander Paul
    The Imbalu culture of the Bamasaba people is well known in scholarly works as a rite of passage, which involves a series of rituals that culminate into circumcision among the Bamasaba males. The cultural practice is also recognized by UNESCO under the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) and protected in various Human Rights instruments as a right like article 37 of the 1995 Uganda constitution, and the United Nations’ International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The paper sets out to explore human rights abuses, embedded in culture which in some circles have called for either its abolition or modifications to suit the modern cultural trends. This enlists questions. How can Imbalu be celebrated with respect to contemporary human rights discourses? How can the cultural heritage of the Imbalu be preserved and maintained in the face of mounting pressure to change some of the cultural values of Imbalu? This paper is descriptive and analytical, based on the ongoing research study on Imbalu among the Bamasaba people of Eastern Uganda.
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    Pentecostal Reinventions of the Passover: Contextual Reflections on the End of Year Night Worship Festivals in Uganda
    (Journal for the Study of Religion, 2024-12-13) Isiko, Alexander Paul; Kisekka, Enock
    Pentecostal scholarship in and about Africa is a vibrant arena in world Christianity, with an upswing in the proliferation of scholarly works on Pentecostal Churches and its centrality in the political and social fabric of African societies. Pentecostalism has been hailed for revival of Christian conservatism in Sub-Saharan Africa, predominated by the nominal Roman Catholics and Protestant Christianity. While some authors have studied African Pentecostalism with prejudgments based on other Christian traditions, some have hailed the theological innovations in healing and evangelism. The study of the Pentecostal end of year worship festivals unravels one of the innovations that justifies the uniqueness of African Pentecostalism, promulgating theologies and traditions on the one hand, and reinventing Judeo-Christian practices in African perspectives, which in a sense give African Pentecostal Churches a claim to divine originality, on the other. In another way, theologies, traditions, and practices emerging from the observance of the annual Pentecostal worship festivals place African Pentecostal Churches among the towering African Christian traditions, which then borrow rather than debunk such Pentecostal theological innovations. This article therefore discusses the Pentecostal Church reinvention of the ancient Jewish Passover festival to mirror the lives of African Christians in contemporary contexts. The ‘contextual theology’ analysis is employed to reflect on both the Jewish Passover and annual Pentecostal worship festivals, with a view of establishing how Passover (non-)parallels and reinventions have produced African Pentecostal theologies, traditions, and practices defining the uniqueness of African Pentecostalism.
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    Researching Religion and the COVID-19 Pandemic in Africa: The Contribution of African Scholars
    (Journal of Religion in Africa, 2024-08-08) Isiko, Alexander Paul
    Abstract Studying religious phenomena in an era when religion was grossly curtailed as a conveyer of COVID-19 proved to be an unusual challenge. This called for innovative approaches and methodologies that differed from the conventional ones in religious research. An assessment of the thematic concerns, methodological approaches, and challenges faced at a time when the global shutdown and quarantine had significantly affected academic research is timely. However, the normative reference to and comparison with Western scholarship on religion overshadows the contribution of African scholars in global studies on religion, which portrays African scholars as demonstrating conspicuous scholarly silence on issues that affect their continent. This article addresses this problem by highlighting the works and contribution of African scholars to the study of religion and COVID-19 to emphasize their visibility in the global production of knowledge. It further analyses African scholars’ attempt to accentuate African society’s interface with the pandemic.
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    The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on religious leaders in Uganda
    (Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 2025-02) Isiko, Alexander Paul ; Mukisa, Joy Isabirye
    The COVID-19 pandemic has been devastating for all categories and communities of people the world over. Its impact on religious practice, religious congregants, and all mankind has been profound. Precursory studies have underscored the significant contribution of religious leaders in mitigating the pandemic. However, few studies exist on the impact of the pandemic upon clerics in their own right as individuals and frontline agents in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. In this article, religious leaders are not distinct from other categories of persons and are, therefore, not exonerated from the effects of the pandemic. It examines their contact with the disease, and how they were affected in carrying out COVID-19 mitigating measures. Using qualitative methods of enquiry, forty religious leaders from Christian denominations and the Islamic faith formed the study population. It was established that religious leaders experienced physical, psychological, and socio-economic hardships emanating from their personal experience of the disease on one hand and as societies’ frontline mitigating agents against the pandemic on the other. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic among clerics in Uganda varied according to religious affiliation, gender, and rural-urban divide. In attempts to provide auxiliary support to mitigate the pandemic and attend to their own struggles, clerics suffered a double tragedy of trauma. The pandemic experience also changed clerics’ opinions as they attempted to manage and adapt to the situation.
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    The politics of knowledge on Covid-19 indigenous medicine in Uganda
    (The Palgrave Handbook of Religion, Health and Development in Africa,https://link.springer.com/, 2025-04-22) Isiko, Alexander Paul; Kisitu, Gyaviira
    Covid-19 was a health risk that threatened the health and well-being of people. The scale of Covid-19 demanded innovative solutions. In Africa, indigenous health solutions such as spiritual and indigenous herbal therapies were central to combating Covid-19. In Uganda, indigenous medicine captured the imagination of a nation struggling to secure vaccines and clinical treatments for Covid-19. This experienced contestations over the determination of the nature and type, ownership and protocols of indigenous medicine acceptable for Covid-19. Among the protocols was the subjection of Covid-19 indigenous medicine to formal approval by the National Drug Authority (NDA). This was contested as costly, un-African, and a deliberate move to undermine the power, authenticity, and efficacy of indigenous medicine. As such, Covid-19 indigenous medicine became a center of power of knowledge conflict. The question of whose knowledge matters in solving local health issues was evident. This chapter exposes the nature and implication of the politics of knowledge on Covid-19 indigenous medicine to the health and well-being of Ugandans. The chapter argues that persistent conflicts of knowledge on the power, authenticity, and efficacy of indigenous medicine in dealing with Covid-19 promoted health and well-being risks.