Dr Brenda McCollum

Brenda McCollum
Postdoctoral Associate Member
St Hilda's College
brenda.mccollum@history.ox.ac.uk

My research examines the social histories of Islam and Muslims in Eastern Africa. My doctoral research examined the Muslim communities of Buganda during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This work focused on the community leadership, education, and political collaborations of the Baganda Muslims in order to examine how they experienced and survived the colonial period. Additionally, my doctoral research analysed the transnational connections that the Baganda Muslims developed as a way to improve their positionality within their colonial society. My graduate research also examined the ways in which Islam was localized by the Baganda Muslims, how this allowed them to navigate colonialism, and how this related to other forms of Islamic localizations in the East African region.

 

Research Interests
My ongoing and future research endeavours relate to the transnational connections which were facilitated in Eastern Africa through the institution of Islam. I am particularly interested in the ways in the ways in which Islam allowed communities to create relationships across racial, ethnic, national, and even sectarian divides. These types of relationships manifested in organizations such as the East African Muslim Welfare Society, through which Muslim communities supported one another through avenues such as financial grants, scholarships, and the sharing of Islamic teachers. My research is also interested in the particularities of Islamic practice in Eastern Africa, with an aim to understanding how Islam was localized in places such as Buganda. This stream of research seeks to analyse how these localizations of Islamic practice were mobilized in order to improve the political and social conditions of communities such as the Baganda Muslims.
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