Recent Publications 

  • Higher Powers: Alcohol and After in Uganda’s Capital City, by China Scherz, George Mpanga, and Sarah Namirembe (Oakland: University of California Press, 2024)

  • The Archive of a Ugandan Missionary: Writings by and about Revd Apolo Kivebulaya, 1890s-1950s, by Emma Wild-Wood and George Mpanga (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021)

  • ‘His mother became medicine: drinking problems, ethical transformation and material care in central Uganda’, with China Scherz, Africa, 89 (2019): 125–46.

2015 to 2022, Research Associate, University of Virginia 

  • ‘Investigating the role of spiritual and social support in processes of healing and personal transformation’

  • Funded by the National Science Foundation [NSF]

 2013 to Present, Affiliated Researcher

  • Makerere Institute of Social Research

  •  Uganda Council for Science and Technology

 2013, Centre for Global Christianity Worldwide, University of Cambridge                                     

Towards a critical biography of Apolo Kivebulaya

  • Investigate archive sources in order to write a biography of this figure and his conversion to colonial Christianity

  • Interview family members, religious leaders, and people in his place of birth

  • Working with Church archives in Namirembe and Mityana Cathedrals, plus other archival centres

  • Translate and transcribe relevant literature

2012, University of Stratford, UK

Class, Disposability, and the Environmental Politics of Garbage in Urban Uganda

  • Identify and interview stakeholders in garbage collection, including Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) officials, garbage collection company officials, recycling personnel, and business people

  • English-Luganda translation and transcription

  • Attend workshops and seminars of garbage stakeholders in Kampala

  • Visit the main garbage dumping centres

 2011– 2012, University of Chicago

The Anti-Politics of an Interminable Adolescence, Gender, Age, and Self-Shaming In Kampala

  • Identify and interview adolescents, parents, political leaders, religious and opinion leaders

  • Analyse and translate radio programmes designed for adolescent children

  • Translation and transcription: field ethnography and Luganda Press

 2009– 2010, University of Cambridge, Faculty of History

Political Theologies in Late Colonial Buganda

  • Provide English-Luganda translation during extended, semi-structured interviews with former and current political activists

  • Identify people to be interviewed and schedule appointments

  • Attend Lukiiko (Buganda Parliament) sessions

  • Extensive archival work in Kampala, Entebbe, Mukono, and Soroti

  • Translation and transcription: field ethnography and Luganda Press

  • Manage project funds

 2007 – 2008, University of California, Berkeley

The Ethics of Inequality: Charity, Sustainable Development and the Problem of Dependence in Central Uganda

  • Provide English-Luganda translations during extended semi-structured interviews with NGO officials, beneficiaries of the projects, political leaders, opinion leaders, and religious leaders

  • Identify people to be interviewed and schedule appointments

  • Translation and transcription: field ethnography and Luganda Press

  • Manage project funds