DOI: 10.36347/sjahss.2019.v07i08.008

Pages: 587-596

This article provides a detailed examination of the Post-Modernist elements in Bagisu’s imbalu circumcision rituals based on a study of the male circumcision ritual among the Bantu-speaking people of Eastern Uganda in Africa. The study was inspired by the fact that the contemporary cultural context of male circumcision has undergone some transformation. Traditional practices were of a particular and rather narrow profile linked to the toughening, training and initiation of male adolescents into warrior or adulthood status. For those groups, the normal social context of circumcision was in the adolescents’ rite of passage typically called “Hushina Imbalu” or initiation schools in ethnographic literature. Therefore, the study undertook a post-modernist interpretation of the performance elements in the circumcision songs and dances of the Bagisu of Eastern Uganda. The study was conducted in the Larger Mbale Districts, Eastern Uganda. It targeted the Bagisu initiates who were circumcised in the past years and those who faced the knife in August-December 2018. It also targeted their parents and surgeons involved in the circumcision ceremonies. Only one circumcision ceremony was observed through all its stages. The sample size comprised four current Bagisu initiates, another four past initiates, four circumcision surgeons, nine local elders and eight parents of the initiates. Therefore, the sample size was 29. The current initiates, the circumcision surgeons and parents were sampled purposively. The past initiates and the elders, on the other hand, were sampled using snow-balling method. Primary data was collected from the field using questionnaires and interviews. Secondary data was obtained from relevant reports, researchers, library research, websites and internet sources. In this study, data analysis began with open coding, followed by axial and selective coding. The findings were then analysed and presented thematically. From the study findings, despite the fact that