Institute of Peace and Strategic Studies

Permanent URI for this community

http://localhost:4000/handle/20.500.14270/7

Browse

Browsing Institute of Peace and Strategic Studies by Subject "Conflict"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Conflict Over Environmental Resources: Tensions between the Refugees and Host Communities in Adjumani District, Northern Uganda
    (2026-09-28) Okello Moses Rubangangeyo
    This study analyzed the complex dynamics of environmental resource-related conflicts between refugees and host communities in Adjumani District, Northern Uganda. Its general objective was to analyze the extent to which the influx of South Sudanese refugees had created these tensions. Specifically, the research aimed to investigate the factors that contributed to these conflicts, assess their socio-economic impact on both refugee and host populations, and analyze the effectiveness of existing policies and interventions designed to address them. The study employed a qualitative research design. Data were accurately collected through 8 Key Informant Interviews (KIIs), 2 Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), and 31 household interviews conducted with both refugee and host community members. The primary data was complemented by a comprehensive review of relevant secondary literature and policy documents. Data analysis utilized a thematic approach, incorporating verbatim quotes to capture the real lived experiences and perspectives of the participants. Findings revealed that intense competition over increasingly scarce environmental resources, particularly land, water, and firewood, exacerbated by environmental degradation and inadequate resource management, significantly fuelled tensions. These conflicts had profound socio-economic consequences, including disrupted livelihoods, increased poverty, strained social cohesion, and heightened safety concerns, particularly for vulnerable women and girls. While various conflict resolution mechanisms and environmental restoration efforts were in place, the study identified critical gaps in policy implementation, resource limitations, and a notable lack of equitable host community involvement, which often led to further resentment. The study concluded that environmental resource conflicts in Adjumani were complex and deeply affected both refugee and host populations, indicating that current interventions, despite their good intentions, were often insufficient or inequitably applied. It recommended the urgent need for more inclusive and context-specific policies, equitable resource management practices, and strengthened community-based conflict resolution mechanisms that meaningfully engaged all stakeholders. A limitation of this research was its specific geographical focus on Adjumani, which might limit the direct generalizability of findings to all refugee-hosting contexts. Future research could explore quantitative measures of resource depletion or long-term impacts of specific policy interventions to build upon these insights.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The hard work of reparative futures: Exploring the potential of creative and convivial practices in post-conflict Uganda
    (Elsevier, 2023) Moles, Kate; Anek, Florence; Baker, Will; Komakech, Daniel; Owor, Arthur; Pennell, Catriona; Rowsell, Jennifer
    In this paper we empirically explore the ways in which young people were enroled in a multimodal exhibition to creatively produce narratives of their past, presents and futures. We look at the different ways this work was framed, and how all memory work and, we argue, future work is relational, interactionally produced and situated in dynamic and unfolding social and political frameworks. We look at the ways young people described the work of producing accounts of their futures within that setting, and the different forms of labour involved in that process. We explore the encounters that fostered local, more humble, acts of care and repair, and how those everyday practices might help build towards reparative futures.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The hard work of reparative futures: Exploring the potential of creative and convivial practices in post-conflict Uganda
    (Elsevier, 2023) Kate Moles; Florence Anek; Will Baker; Daniel Komakech; Arthur Owor; Catriona Pennell; Jennifer Rowsel
    In this paper we empirically explore the ways in which young people were enroled in a multimodal exhibition to creatively produce narratives of their past, presents and futures. We look at the different ways this work was framed, and how all memory work and, we argue, future work is relational, interactionally produced and situated in dynamic and unfolding social and political frameworks. We look at the ways young people described the work of producing accounts of their futures within that setting, and the different forms of labour involved in that process. We explore the encounters that fostered local, more humble, acts of care and repair, and how those everyday practices might help build towards reparative futures.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Two marriages, two speeds: Disruptions and connections in post-conflict Gulu cityscape
    (Journal of Sociology and Development, 2021-12-15) Komakech, Daniel
    Drawing from urban studies and conflict studies with specific focus on transitional justice sphere of return and reintegration, the paper elaborates on the existing complex disruptions and connections in coupling among former Lord’s Resistance Army returnees in Gulu city, northern Uganda. Deploying new conceptual tools, namely, the materiality and vitality of “kavera (polythene bag) that the men instrumentalise to negotiate a relationship with the women and also how women use “browning” technique (a metaphor built on a local emphasis on “brown is beautiful”) to attract and retain men, we think through coupling in the post-conflict Gulu cityscape to understand and enhance the complex dynamics involved and negotiated, making coupling among the returnees, fleeting and therefore, swinging in a centrifugal manner. Consequently, we contend that coupling amongst the returnees in the everyday cityscape of Gulu is open-ended and that the concept and the persons oscillate between "narrowing and expansion, ambiguity and precision” (AbdouMaliq and Pieterse 2017: x). In that sense, both the concept and the persons are elusive and has its own logic, with its terms of reference expanding and contracting as far as it can bend (AbdouMaliq and Pieterse 2017: 159). Therefore, instead of a normative or ideals of coupling, rather, we should think in terms of the everyday production and practices of ‘couple-making’.