Paper short abstract:

Land tenure in the drylands of Kenya and Uganda is undergoing rapid change. This paper analyses how communal land reform alongside rising individualisation and privatisation of land are contested among various actors. It seeks to provide pathways to 'good' resource governance.

Paper long abstract:

Land tenure and resource governance in the drylands of Kenya and Uganda are undergoing rapid change. Land reform and increasing pressures on dryland resources from various sources are resulting in different forms of boundary-making, the fragmentation of pastoralist areas and conflict between various actors. The region’s resources are being revalued with the rise of mining, energy extraction, conservation, and infrastructure projects. In addition to these often-externally driven pressures on land, people from the region are increasingly individualizing and privatising land for a variety of reasons, including speculation and agricultural innovation. At the same time, land reforms in Kenya and Uganda are encouraging pastoralists to secure communal land through demarcation and registration. These various forms of boundary-making are re-drawing the nature of Kenyan and Ugandan drylands in terms of land and resource rights, access and management. Based on an interdisciplinary research project ongoing in West Pokot and Turkana Counties (Kenya), and Moroto and Napak Districts (Uganda) (https://www.slu.se/en/collaboration/international/slu-global/triple-l/projects/drylands-transform/), this paper asks, how are processes of boundary-making and resource governance institutions contested within and between communities, and between communities and various state and non-state actors? What are the power relations between different actors? And what are the pathways toward ‘good’ resource governance? The paper uses a political ecology approach to address these questions and theorise processes of boundary-making.