Struggling over land in post-conflict Uganda

Abstract

Land dispossession and conflicts over land compound resettlement efforts in post-conflict contexts. This is particularly true in rural sub-Saharan African countries, where the vast majority of livelihoods depend on maintaining access and rights to cultivable land. This article engages in the active debate on this topic using ethnographic research conducted in the Teso region in eastern Uganda during 2012 and 2013. The Teso region experienced three violent conflicts from the late 1960s to the mid-2000s, which at times were overlapping: large-scale cattle rustling, a civil war, and an insurgency. The research focuses on Amuria District, Katakwi District, and Tisai Island in Kumi District in order to consider three interrelated phenomena: the cyclical nature of the displacement-resettlement process, the intra-regional differences in how this process has unfolded, and the particular ways in which struggles over land are deeply embedded within the post-conflict context. The article...