{"id":11277,"date":"2026-10-14T19:43:24","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T19:43:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/?p=11277"},"modified":"2026-10-14T19:43:25","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T19:43:25","slug":"dr-scott-nokes-returns-from-uganda-after-nine-months-of-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/2026\/10\/14\/dr-scott-nokes-returns-from-uganda-after-nine-months-of-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Scott Nokes returns from Uganda after nine months of research"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

TROY, Ala. (TROJANVISION<\/a>) \u2014 A Troy literature professor returned from a research trip in Uganda last week after months of delays.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On January 7 of this year, Dr. Richard Scott Nokes arrived in Kampala, Uganda to begin his Fulbright Scholarship research trip. His mission in the country was to travel to all the different kingdoms and cultures and find the stories only told by old books and word of mouth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uganda doesn\u2019t have a lot of written history, and from what they do have almost none of it is published online. Thanks to the Fulbright program, the United States’ international educational exchange program that sends people abroad to study and build cultural understanding, Nokes was able to gather those stories and is now working to publish them digitally.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Uganda, researchers are required to have permits to access certain parts of the country, and shortly after he arrived, Uganda\u2019s election season caused a delay in his research permit process. The Tropolitan spoke to him about it at the beginning of the semester. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnfortunately, many researchers simply choose to research illegally \u2013 I\u2019ve been surprised by how common that is, especially among European and other African universities,\u201d Nokes said. \u201cOf course, Troy University and the Fulbright program operate within proper ethical guidelines, so I went through the permitting process, which took nearly nine months in total, three of which were when I was already in Uganda.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

LOOKING BACK: Troy University professor to spend six months in Uganda<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAlthough I used that time to do teaching and seminars at my host school, Kyambogo University, my research really didn\u2019t begin until my time was halfway through.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The delay prompted Fulbright to extend his grant from the end of June to the beginning of October. He officially returned to Troy\u2019s campus on Oct. 5. Now that he\u2019s back, Nokes said he has finally got to have some of the things he missed while he was gone.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI definitely missed American food,\u201d Nokes said. \u201cI missed a lot of American customs and being back just as we enter the holiday season, so we aren\u2019t going to miss those, that’s nice.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are certainly lots of things about Troy University that I missed: I missed my students and I missed my colleagues as well.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t all smooth sailing after the three-month delay. There was an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo that affected his travel all while he was in Uganda and on the trip home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUganda is very, very good at treating Ebola \u2013 there’s no cure, but they’re good at treating it \u2013 and so the Congolese would come across the border into Uganda,\u201d Nokes said. \u201cSo, our movement was restricted outside of Uganda, and we had originally planned to take trips out into Rwanda and the surrounding countries, but we weren’t able to do that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we returned [to America] we had to go through CDC Ebola screening, leading to all kinds of mishaps and delays, so getting back was surprisingly difficult.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luckily for him and his research, he was still able to travel wherever he needed to go within the country, he just couldn\u2019t go out. He finally got his permit to research after three months in the country and was able to spend six of his nine months collecting stories.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said one of the coolest people he got to talk to was a group called \u201cThe Lost Tribe\u201d or \u201cThe Invisible Tribe,\u201d a group of people that even most Ugandans are not aware of. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you say \u2018lost tribe\u2019 sometimes people think they\u2019re living out a stone age existence in the jungle; but on my phone, I have the WhatsApp number of the King and we message back and forth and the Queen has a master\u2019s degree,\u201d Nokes said. \u201cWhile they\u2019re very remote, they aren\u2019t completely cut off in any kind of way.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reason meeting these people left such an impact on him was the realization that without him, one day they may truly be lost, forgotten, or invisible forever. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019re very eager to make sure that their culture isn\u2019t lost because they\u2019re so small and so marginalized,\u201d Nokes said. \u201cIt was really fascinating to be able to do that and to be a part of something that wouldn\u2019t have happened without Fulbright and Troy University\u2019s support, and their stories probably would have been lost forever.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that he has returned, it is time for him to begin to officially record and publish those stories and so many more that he gathered in his six months of research. However, what he originally predicted would be a one-to-two-year process, is proving to be much more detailed than he once thought. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe collected two terabytes of data in 30 different languages, so the work that comes next is going to be a lot of translation and a lot of building the website,\u201d Nokes said. \u201cIn addition, when I went there, I discovered that the Ugandans didn\u2019t have the research to do digital publishing, so they did carboard and paper only, if they published at all.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, his goal is to get the proper grants to be able to fully translate all the stories out of 30 different languages into English and publish them digitally. That way, the process of keeping, recording and accessing these stories is easy and free for not only the Ugandans, but anyone in the world curious about the history of a country so full of the unknown. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TROY, Ala. (TROJANVISION) \u2014 A Troy literature professor returned from a research trip in Uganda last week after months of delays.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On January 7 of this year, Dr. Richard Scott Nokes arrived in Kampala, Uganda to begin his Fulbright Scholarship research trip. His mission in the country was to travel to all the different kingdoms…<\/p>\n

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