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

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 peoplethe 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.

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“…The Europeans settled in Africa without considering the question of traditional land use, customs and beliefs. 41 Their perception of the African…”

“…Sacotti to plant 4,000 mulberry trees on land plots intended to be used as mulberry farms. 41 As mulberry silkworms feed only on mulberry leaves (at an early stage 6-8 times and later 3-4 times a day), 1,500 kg of mulberry leaves are needed in order to breed 100 kg of cocoons, 42 and it took about seven years for the mulberry trees to grow sufficiently to ensure enough leaves. 39.…”

“…This done because of security reasons. 41 During this period, religious sanctions provided much essential backing for the authority of the head of the family. He was taken as a representative of the ancestors on earth.…”

Refusing aid

“…Insofar as scholars understand present‐day life and action in Acholi as always emanating from moral breakdown caused by war and displacement, we fail to see the “living of ordinary ethics: an active and ongoing working‐through of norms as well as judgement of (and despite) the underdetermined recesses of experience” (Victor, 2019, p. 405). Attending to the ordinary ethics of living, such as intra‐VSLA disputes or VSLA‐NGO frustrations, uncouples present‐day social life from the “event‐aftermath” (Hunt, 2016, p. 4; see also Hopwood, 2022) of the conflict and displacement and accepts that ethical becoming in Acholi (and everywhere else, for that matter) is indeterminant, emanating from a “consistent problematization of ontology, politics, violence, gender, and class” (Victor, 2019, p. 396) that extends through time.…”

“…77A certain body of work critiques contemporary efforts to engage in “traditional” Acholi mechanisms for social repair. For an examination of Acholi political structure, see Komujuni and Büscher (2020); to understand politics undergirding “traditional land tenure” see Hopwood (2022). Allen et al.’s (2020) recent study on the long‐term effects of reintegration programs for children who returned from life with the LRA provides insight into the impact of humanitarian interventions on the moral regulation of Acholi social spaces.…”