Evarist Ngabirano

Evarist
Fellow Status
Alumni
Current Status
Senior Lecturer, Head of Humanities Department, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Mountains of the Moon University, Fort Portal, Uganda
Thesis Title
Beyond Ethnic Patriotism: A Comparative Study of Toro and Kigezi Districts in Uganda
About me

Evarist Ngabirano is Senior Lecturer and Head of Humanities department at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Mountains of the Moon University in Fort portal, Uganda. He is also a Research Associate at Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR), Makerere University. He holds an interdisciplinary MPhil/PhD in Social Studies from Makerere University, a Masters of Religious Studies from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven) and a Bachelor of Divinity from Makerere University.

Research Focus
His area of concentration in teaching and research is at the intersection of religion, culture and politics. He has over fifteen years of work experience in teaching and research at Mountains of the Moon University where he directed the project to preserve and digitize archives of Toro and Bunyoro sub-regions. He has received several prestigious fellowship awards including University of Michigan African Presidential Scholars (UMAPS), SSRC-Next-generation Social Science in Africa, and African Studies Association (ASA) Presidential fellowship.

Publications
1. Ngabirano E. (2026) Beyond Ethnic Patriotism: A Comparative Study of Uganda’s ‘Derivative’ and ‘Dialectical’ Responses in Rwenzori and Kigezi Regions; Kampala: Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR).

2. The Uganda Past and Future Team. (2025). Reinventing Uganda: Political Imagination and Social Change after the fall of Idi Amin (1979-80), Eds; Annael-LePoullennec, Severine Mrchi, Barbara Morovich and Sylvain Racaud. Paris, Kampala: Africae Studies, Makerere University Press.

3. Ngabirano, E. et al. (2025). Attempting to Remake Uganda’s Politics: “The Gang of Four” and the NCC. In Uganda past, Uganda Futures Team, (eds), Re-inventing Uganda: Political Imagination and Social Change after the fall of Idi Amin (1979-80). (pp. 41-57. Africae, Makerere University Press. https://press.mak.ac.ug/book/reinventing-uganda-the-uganda-past-and-future-team/

4. Ngabirano, E. (2024). Beyond Ethnicity: Reflections on the History and Politics of Violence in Uganda. In O. B. Mlambo & E. Chitando, (eds), The Palgrave Handbook of Violence in Africa (pp. 601-617). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40754-3_28

5. Ngabirano, E. (2024). Nationalism and Pandemics: Of colonial governmentality and COVID-19 response measures in Uganda. In D.N. Tshimba (ed.), Decolonization Pathways: Coloniality and Africa Responses to COVID-19 (pp. 235-251). Kampala: Uganda Martyrs University Press.

6. Ngabirano, E. (2022). Beyond Local Government Reforms: A Case Study of Toro and Kigezi District politics of Postcolonial Uganda. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 28(2), 165–185. https://doi.org/10.1080/13537113.2021.1990704

7. Ngabirano E. (2022). Beyond ethnic patriotism: A case study of the intellectual and political history of Toro and Kigezi districts in Uganda, MISR Review, No. 5, 12-44.

8. Ngabirano, E. (2021). Beyond ethnic patriotism: Paulo Ngologoza, politics of geography and the making of residence-base identity in Uganda, East African Journal of Peace and Human Rights, 27: 1, 59-84.

9. Ngabirano, E. (2008). The environment in Uganda: An ethical and theological assessment of the conservation-preservation controversy; Saarbruken: VDM Verlag.