Dorah Kasozi from the Margaret Trowel School of Industrial and Fine Art (MTSIFA), College of Engineering, Design, Art and Technology (CEDAT) successfully defended her Ph.D. on Friday 3rd November 2023.
Kasozi is an Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Industrial Art and Applied Design (DIAAD).
The blended public defense event was held in the CEDAT Board room attracting the participation of both virtual and physical audiences from various backgrounds.
Her Thesis is titled; “PAPER BEAD[ING] AS AGENCY: SHAPING WOMEN’S SUBJECTIVITIES AND THE PRACTICE OF JEWELRY-MAKING IN UGANDA.”
In her remarks, Dorah Kasozi extended her appreciation to her supervisors, the doctoral committee, her colleagues at work, and the sponsors for the support rendered that enabled her to reach this milestone.
She said she chose to undertake an academic study about beading because she is a beader herself and because beading encompasses both the object and process during which people blend during engagements, and express who they are in their environment. She said paper beading dates way back to colonial legacies and was regarded for long as a craft for women in their private space. She said that in Uganda, this has become part of the geopolitical space since its start in the 1980s.
She said her study was in line with Makerere University’s policy of community outreach and that lessons learned from the experiences of the women involved in beading were a demonstration of their resilience in forming connections and participating meaningfully in the socio-economic empowerment.
While hinting at the various works as exhibited on the walls, DorahKasozi said she aimed at tapping into the use of otherwise rejected materials around the community and to make them objects of artistic expression.
‘In this study, I interrogated the premise that paper bead[ing] is a site of agency that women beaders use to [re]constitute their subjectivities in ways that informed a jewelry enterprise as both knowledge production and art/design-making,’ she stated in her abstract.
