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Archives of Idi Amin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2022

Edgar C. Taylor Open the ORCID record for Edgar C. Taylor [Opens in a new window] ,
Nelson A. Abiti ,
Derek R. Peterson  and
Richard Vokes
Edgar C. Taylor*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Archaeology and Heritage Studes, Makerere University, Uganda
Nelson A. Abiti
Affiliation:
University of Western Cape, Curator, Uganda National Museum, Uganda
Derek R. Peterson
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA48109
Richard Vokes
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology and Development, University of Western Australia, Australia
*
*Corresponding Author: edgar.taylor@mak.ac.ug
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Abstract

This report describes the official photographic archives of Idi Amin’s government held by the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC). During his reign from 1971 to 1979, Idi Amin embraced visual media as a tool for archiving the achievements of populist military rule as his government sought to reorient Ugandans’ relationship with the state. Only a handful of the resulting images were ever printed or seen, reflecting the regime’s archival impulse undergirded by paranoia of unauthorized ways of seeing. The UBC’s newly opened collection of over 60,000 negatives from Amin’s photographers, alongside files at the Uganda National Archives, offers the first comprehensive opportunity to study the Ugandan state under Amin’s dictatorship through the lens of its own documentarians.

Résumé

Résumé

Ce rapport décrit les archives photographiques officielles du gouvernement d’Idi Amin détenu par l’Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC). Pendant son règne de 1971 à 1979, Idi Amin a adopté les médias visuels comme outil d’archivage des réalisations de son régime militaire populiste alors que son gouvernement cherchait à réorienter la relation des Ougandais avec l’Etat. Seule une petite partie des images résultantes a été imprimée ou vue, reflétant comment la pratique archivistique du régime était sous-tendue par une paranoïa sur les autorisations pour la consultation de ces documents. La collection nouvellement ouverte de l’UBC de plus de 60 000 négatifs des photographes d’Amin, ainsi que les archives de l’Uganda National Archives, offrent la première opportunité complète d’étudier l’État ougandais sous la dictature d’Amin à travers l’objectif de ses propres documentaristes.

Type
Archival Notes
Information
History in Africa , Volume 48 , June 2021 , pp. 413 - 427
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the African Studies Association

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