Description:
Although violent conflict has declined in northern Uganda, tensions and mistrust concerning land have increased. Residents try to deal with acquisitions by investors and exclusions from forests and wildlife reserves. Land wrangles among neighbours and relatives are widespread. The growing commodification of land challenges ideals of entrustment for future generations. Using extended case studies, collaborating researchers analyze the principles and practices that shape access to land. Contributors examine the multiplicity of land claims, the nature of transactions and the management of conflicts. They show how access to land is governed through intimate relations of gender, generation and belonging.
Brief description:
Lotte Meinert is Professor at the Department of Anthropology, Aarhus University. She has carried out research in Uganda since 1993 and led research capacity projects in Northern Uganda for 15 years. Her publications include Time Work: Studies of Temporal Agency Biosocial Worlds (Berghahn, 2020) and Configuring Contagion: Ethnographies of Biosocial Epidemics (Berghahn, 2021).
Review Quotes:
"This wonderful book makes an important contribution to the study of African land and rural communities on a number of levels. There is a remarkable richness and diversity of empirical material, largely collected and described by researchers and writers from the region." - Julian Hopwood, London School of Economics