Imagining futures/future imaginings: creative heritage work with young people in Uganda

Abstract: Drawing on research in Uganda, we describe our project in which we invited young people to think about their lives in ways that opened up creative and hopeful imaginaries of the future. We understand future imaginary work to be a significant part of memory work. An important component in the ways we think about the past is imagining the futures it ties to. We wanted the idea of the future to be something our young participants constructed together, in dialogue and iteratively, so that the project had a sense of collaboration and shared interests. To do so we developed the idea of a touring exhibition through which multiple voices, positions, understandings and values could be accommodated side by side. The article contributes to scholarly and public debates about reparations and memorialisation, particularly by showing the crucial role young people can play in articulating more just futures.

Keywords: youth futures, creative methods, imagined futures, Uganda

Article posted to the Journal of the British Academy, volume 11, supplementary issue 3 (Being and Becoming: Uncertain Youth Futures)