Peter Kasaija

Peter is an urban planner and researcher with more than ten years of teaching and research experience from Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda. He is currently undertaking doctoral research that undertakes a critical analysis of power and informal sanitation infrastructure in Kampala. His research diverges from contemporary macro-scalar and structural approaches to understanding power in Kampala, the archetypal African city. His research takes a more contextually grounded approach that seeks to interrogate and excavate the granular materialities of the everyday interactions between and among diverse actors, and how these are ultimately implicated in conditioning sanitation access and coverage especially for the urban poor. Subsequently, his research aims to contribute to and augment the emerging body of Southern urbanism which seeks to approach urban environmental change in Africa and the global South generally through the experiential lens of the citizens who live in them, away from the more traditional reductionist and apolitical approaches that are steeped in the historical experiences of the global North. Undoubtedly, his research will help to generate valuable learning to trigger more radical thinking about existential and future socio-economic, political and environmental challenges not only in the urbanizing global South but also in the already urbanized global North.

Aside from teaching on various academic programs, throughout his work at the university especially under the Urban Action Lab, Peter has been very active in helping to build and maintain vital partnerships and collaborations between Makerere University, other academic institutions (local and international) as well as urban development actors including key state organs like the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development and the wider civil society. Through these actor networks, the university has leveraged its resources in form of knowledge sharing, exchange and experiential learning for equipping the country’s next generation of urban development practitioners while also positioning itself at the fore of development frontier to shape relevant urban development policy and locally-generated solutions in response to existential socio-economic and environmental challenges facing the country.

As a development practitioner, Peter has demonstrated a keen interest in social justice and sustainable urban environmental change. This is evident in his work on urban informality (i.e. transport, housing and land tenure) and other issues such as urban poverty and inequality. He has also co-published several papers and policy briefs on these different thematic areas.