Kasfah Birungi lives in Kampala, Uganda and is our lead librarian and archivist at Makerere University. She conducts archival research on contemporary and colonial eras of fashion and beauty coverage and the colonial legacies of land and hosing policies in Kampala. In addition to her invaluable research in the archive, Kasfah has also assisted in conducting survey-based research on the fashion and bridal industry and interviews with secondhand clothing vendors in downtown markets such as Owino. We are so lucky to have worked with her the past seven years.   

Faridah Nanyonga holds a Masters degree in Gender and Women's Studies from Makerere University. As part of our collective, she has assisted with interviews, and helped with facilitating body mapping workshops for Dr. Faria's NSF funded project on retail investment in Kampala. She is currently in the process of moving to Houston, Texas!

A feminist economic geographer and former Sustainability Studies Lecturer in the Department of Geography & the Environment at UT Austin. Her research centers on the origins as well as social and environmental impacts associated with various climate policy tools. To date, tools under study include market-based policy instruments such as carbon footprints, and legal tools intent on extending personhood rights to nature. She draws on critical social theoretical scholarship to illuminate potential inequities and possibilities in how climate policy gets enacted. For more, visit her research-gate page.

Elisabeth is a feminist geographer and a postdoctoral researcher of transcultural studies at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. She visited the collective in Spring 2018. Her research tries to understand the doings of affect, emotion and embodiment in everyday encounters. While her doctoral research has developed the idea of affective nationalism as a felt condition of experiencing world that emerges from banal encounters between different bodies and objects, she investigates the affective geographies of the bridal dress during her time at UT Austin. 

Katushabe Jovah is from Rukungiri, Uganda. She holds a BA in Social Sciences and an MA in Gender Studies from Makerere University. Her research has focused on Ugandan women, gender relations and agriculture. She currently works as a researcher. As part of our collective, Jovah conducts research on the Ugandan bridal and beauty industry. Primarily, she planned, coordinated and facilitated a series of focus groups with students at Makerere University. She also assisted in the collection of archival data on the beauty and fashion industry, and conducted surveys with key industry actors.  

Tumuhaise Phionah is a current Masters student in the Gender and Women's Studies program at Makerere University. As part of our collective, she has facilitated with data collection for Dr. Faria's NSF funded project on retail investment in Kampala. Specifically she has worked in the capacity of performing interviews and facilitating body mapping workshops. She will plan on co-authoring a piece with Dominica as they both employ feminist body mapping methods in their perspective research projects.

Kizito Catherine Kyotowadde lives in Nansana-Kabulengwa, Wakiso District, Uganda. She holds a BA degree in Social Sciences and a Masters degree in Gender Studies from Makerere University. Catherine is a researcher and as part of our collective, she conducts archival and survey-based research on the Ugandan bridal and beauty industry. She is also our transcriber-extrordinaire! 

Jasper Bakeiha Ankunda is an Environment and Development Specialist from Makerere University. Also trained in Women and Gender Studies, her work is grounded in understanding how gender intersects with the environment and impacts human-environmental relations both in urban and rural settings. Jasper is currently a full time researcher with the Gender Studies department, and has worked on a variety of academic, government, and NGO research teams to provide a gender perspective. As part of our collective, she has lead interviews, mobilized community members, and facilitated body mapping workshops for Dr. Faria's NSF funded project on retail investment in Kampala. 

Resty Kyomukama has her bachelor’s degree in information technology from Kampala International University, Uganda, a master’s degree in development studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel and her second master’s degree in human rights, gender and conflict studies from the International Institute of social studies, Erasmus University, Netherlands. She has worked in both development and humanitarian settings in central, Northern Uganda and west Nile working with NGOs to build capacity in gender equality, women’s rights, refugees protection and undertaking gender-sensitive programs evaluations and research. As part of our collective, she has assisted with interviews for Dr. Faria's NSF funded project on retail investment in Kampala.

Annie received her B.A. International Relations & Global Studies and B.A. Government with minors in Latin American Studies and Spanish from the University of Texas in 2018. Her award-winning senior thesis research examined the politics of beauty pageants in Uganda. She helped form the collective during her time at UT and continues to publish and collaborate with us! She currently is a doctoral student in Geography at UNC- Chapel Hill. Her master research examined the history of Durham’s diet and weight-loss industry from the 1930s to 1980s.