Colonial Biopolitics and Epidemiological Change: The History of Sleeping Sickness in Busoga(Uganda):1850–1962

Abstract

Busoga has, over time, experienced recurrent waves of sleeping sickness, a phenomenon shaped by its ecological conditions and its proximity to the tsetse-infested shores of Lake Victoria. Before the diffusion of biomedical knowledge, Basoga communities interpreted the disease through cosmological and spiritual frameworks, frequently associating it with curses, witchcraft, or ancestral retribution. Using ecological theory and the concept of ecological imperialism, this article investigates the shifting epidemiological patterns of sleeping sickness in Busoga from 1850 to 1962. It interrogates the interplay between indigenous knowledge systems, environmental change, and the disruptions introduced by colonial penetration, including forced relocations, labour demands, and the restructuring of landscapes. In analysing colonial medical policies and administrative responses, the study illustrates how imperial interventions both mitigated and, at times, exacerbated disease transmission.  The article demonstrates that the history of sleeping sickness in Busoga cannot be understood apart from the complex entanglement of ecology, culture, and colonial power, which collectively shaped the region’s disease environment across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries