Description

Kerry’s research project, funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council, explored the emergence of evidence regimes in political institutions in Africa. She focused specifically on the Ugandan Parliament, a continual target of donor-sponsored programmes designed to strengthen research capacity; which is often packaged as advancing the skills and resources to translate evidence into policymaking. Having worked as a consultant on a programme managed initially by the UK Parliament, she designed and successfully applied for a research project that examines more carefully how capacity is conceived and worked on in parliamentary contexts; how the political ideals and value systems that underpin interventions in research capacity circulate and find distinction; and how new epistemic orders emerge to influence political decision-making. Cutting across these questions are threads that attend to professionalism, institutional structures, ignorance and informality, and trust and survivalism. This research project draws on anthropology, geography, history and political science in order to understand the making of knowledge systems in an African parliament.

Key publication

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