An inherited animus to communal land: the mechanisms of coloniality in land reform agendas in Acholiland, northern Uganda

Julian Hopwood

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Access to land for the Acholi people of northern Uganda still has much in common with understandings of the pre-colonial situation. This paper reflects on how collective landholding has faced over a century of hostile policy promoting land as private property. The notion of coloniality arises in this confrontation: the failure of communication ensuing from understanding Acholi social ordering in terms of false entities; and the foregrounding of land as object. The durability of colonial mechanisms emerges in processes such as the codification of the principles and practices of Acholi ‘customary land’. Pressure for land reform is driven by external bodies, UN agencies, donor governments and international NGOs, claiming to be seeking to protect the interest of the poor. Yet these offer no respite for the growing numbers of landless people - the colonial agenda appears to have its own momentum, serving no one’s interests. Meanwhile misunderstandings and misrepresentations of land holding groups entrenches the subaltern voicelessness of their members, isolating them from any support in dealing with the challenges of too many people on not enough land.

Keywords: colonial durabilities; land; Uganda; Acholi (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J01 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 17 pages
Date: 2022-01-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-his and nep-isf
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Published in Critical African Studies, 1, January, 2022, 14(1), pp. 38 - 54. ISSN: 2168-1392

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