Paper short abstract:

This paper addresses the intra-family dynamics of land exclusion in an area of western Uganda near a plantation with a large outgrower programme, investigating the complex interactions between agricultural technopolitics, gender, and bodily-mental disadvantage.

Paper long abstract:

‘Land-grabbing’ is a huge public concern in Uganda, but many of the dynamics are poorly understood. This is particularly true for cases involving people whose body-minds are socially marked as atypical, who tend to face exclusion on a micro scale within the family, because scholarship and the media focus on the most spectacular, community-level events. In this paper, I address the intra-family dynamics of land exclusion in an area of western Uganda near a plantation with a large outgrower programme, investigating the complex interactions between agricultural technopolitics, gender, and particular bodily-mental features. Using case studies of several self-proclaimed disabled people who have histories of land loss, I investigate the language and actions they and their antagonists employ to forward their claims to land access. I identify two diverging discourses used to talk about bodily-mental disadvantage, typified by the words ‘obulema’ [disability] and ‘abaceke’ [weak people], and trace their differential distribution and consequences in land disputes.