Indicators for informal learning: a mobile heritage network for conflict-affected communities in Uganda

This network brings together UK and Ugandan researchers and practitioners with expertise in heritage, memory studies and education to critically explore appropriate methods of assessing informal learning in relation to peace and reconciliation in mobile heritage settings. Sites of heritage enrol people into particular practices, engagements with and negotiations of the past, and they are important spaces of informal learning about peace and reconciliation as a result. There is growing expectation that international, national and local heritage agencies and actors have a positive role to play in the prevention of conflict and post-conflict development yet these spaces are often neglected in considerations of education, as they are informal sites where memory work is undertaken but neglected in formal curriculum. This means that there is currently little understanding of the impact of informal heritage learning for sustained peace.
The network will produce interdisciplinary knowledge, build local research capacity within heritage organisations and strengthen an international collaboration for developing future research projects. Through this, it will directly contribute to the Ugandan Peace, Recovery and Development Plan and Refugee and the Host Population Empowerment Strategy. It will also address the global challenges and sustainable development goals of (1) enabling inclusive and equitable quality education and (2) reducing conflict and promoting peace, justice and humanitarian action.
The network focuses on recent and ongoing innovative heritage work by Nelson Abiti (the Ugandan Co-investigator of Uganda Museum) and associated cultural organisations. These mobile exhibitions seek to bring about informal learning about peace and reconciliation and achieve community cohesion amongst a variety of participant groups but tthe impact of which have not been tested. The network activities provide space for academics from the humanities and social sciences, heritage practitioners, government officials and participant groups to (1) reflect on the types of learning that are happening in these informal heritage sites and (2) co-construct meaningful and contextually-appropriate ways to assess this learning. The participant groups will include ex-combatants, refugees, community leaders, women peace club members, abductees and survivors.
Research capacity will be developed among Ugandan cultural organisations to understand and assess learning. We will co-develop informal learning indicators based on participants' reflections on their engagement with informal heritage learning. These will be of significant interest to a range of stakeholders concerned with the role of heritage sites in contributing to peaceful sustainable development in Uganda and across East Africa. The network will develop sustained international relationships that have the potential for longer-term research collaboration leading to significant impact. It is anticipated that this will include the co-design of collaborative academic articles and a large research project about informal heritage learning and the ways in which it can be mobilised to bring about positives outcomes for those affected by conflict, violence and displacement.

This network has significant scope for impact both in the immediate and longer term. The ultimate aim of the endeavour is to contribute to sustained peace and reconciled communities across Uganda. This will have enormous benefit for the millions living with the effects of recent and ongoing conflict, violence, trauma and displacement. We believe that informal heritage learning can contribute to this ultimate aim but that too little is known about this work, and the potentially positive learning outcomes being achieved by this work, within both Ugandan and international development communities and the communities where the work takes place.

The network will create a series of indicators to assess the learning that is happening in informal educational settings related to peace and reconciliation in different types of conflict-affected communities in Uganda. It is envisaged that clearer measures of learning will help to raise the profile of work being done within Uganda and across the region in the context of SDG4 and the focus on measurable targets. This will benefit heritage organisations in Uganda, and further afield, by raising the visibility of community models of reconciliation efforts to the wider public and policy makers through better understanding of the informal learning processes that happen in community cultural heritage exhibitions and performances. It is hoped that this will ensure that the benefit of informal learning, particularly in relation to innovative heritage activities, can clearly be seen to donors, governments and the communities where the heritage activities take place.

The network will build local capacity among heritage organisations to evaluate the informal learning practices of peace and reconciliation in conflict-affected contexts. The academic linkage will create a strong body of knowledge appreciated by the Ugandan development and heritage communities. In turn, this will be beneficial at the community level as the new knowledge will be used to peer support other communities about informal learning processes of heritage work with communities, especially through the current work of the Uganda Museum with refugees in the settlement camps.

Longer term, it is envisaged that the new interdisciplinary knowledge gained through the network will increase the focus on informal heritage learning and, in turn, increase funding available for heritage work happening in conflict-affected communities. It is hoped that this would have a significant impact on those affected by conflict - including refugees and host communities, ex-combatants, abductees and survivors - through more sustained opportunities for engaging in informal heritage learning leading to community-led peace and reconciliation.

The network will strengthen the international partnership between UK researchers and Ugandan cultural organisations, including the Uganda Museum, Kitgum Documentation Centre and Gulu Justice Reconciliation Centre. We plan for the network to provide a starting point for sustained collaboration and future research project development with the potential for significant and long-term impact for heritage practitioners, conflict-affected communities in Uganda and the international development community. These sustained collaborations, alongside the new interdisciplinary knowledge, will place the research team well to develop research grant applications related to informal heritage learning. This will lead to significant impact through the development of a stronger evidence base for the contribution of innovative and successful informal heritage learning for peace and reconciliation.