Mahmood Mamdani on how Uganda's history shaped his belonging and his son's moment

"That scholarship is rooted in his own experience as a Ugandan citizen of Indian origin who was twice rendered stateless due to political turmoil in East Africa during the 1970s and 80s. "We were migrants, and under the colonial system, migrants were defined as non-Indigenous," Mamdani said. That meant people like him were never made to feel fully at home in Uganda and were stripped of core rights."

"Those experiences shaped a lifelong quest to understand, as he puts it, "who belongs, who does not, and how it has changed over time." Mamdani has been a professor of government in the department of anthropology at Columbia University since 1999. His latest book, Slow Poison, focuses on the making of the Ugandan state post British colonialism and the two autocrats that largely shaped it."

"Mamdani argues that Idi Amin and the current president Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power since 1986, inherited and governed within an within an intractable colonial legacy handed down from the British. Speaking to NPR's Leila Fadel, Mamdani discussed the book and the parallels between his experiences in exile and his son's quest to challenge ideas of power and belonging in the country's largest city."

Mahmood Mamdani is a Ugandan of Indian origin who was twice rendered stateless during political turmoil in East Africa in the 1970s and 1980s. His scholarship centers on colonialism and anti-colonialism in Africa and on questions of who belongs and who does not. Personal experience of being defined as a migrant under colonial systems shaped his inquiry into exclusion and rights. He has been a professor of government in Columbia University's anthropology department since 1999. His book Slow Poison examines Uganda's post-British state formation and argues that Idi Amin and Yoweri Museveni governed within an intractable colonial legacy.

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