Isabella Crow
Pronouns: they/them
Research Mentor(s): Kelly Askew
Co-Presenter:
Research Mentor School/College/Department: DAAS/Anthropology / LSA
Presentation Date: April 20
Presentation Type: Poster
Session: Session 4 – 2:40pm – 3:30 pm
Room: League Ballroom
Authors: Isabella Crow
Presenter: 11
Abstract
Since 2017, more than 35,000 people living in the Kiryandongo District of Uganda have been evicted from their lands to make way for industrial agriculture. Despite the scale and impact of these evictions, there is a dearth of coverage concerning the causes, victims, and implications of such extensive land dispossession, both internationally and within Uganda. My study addresses this twin crisis of underdocumentation by utilizing reports from humanitarian organizations such as Amnesty International, Cultural Survival, and Minority Rights Group, as well as news articles from the Ugandan Monitor, to construct a complete, accessible record of the contemporary and ongoing human rights abuses in Kiryandongo. This aligns with the greater goals of Violations Against Indigenous Africa, a project which seeks to compile, publish, and share research related to land dispossession of indigenous peoples on the African continent. The forced evictions in Kiryandongo have disproportionately affected the indigenous Maragoli people who live there; in addition to being subject to agribusiness-driven land dispossession, the Maragoli have been determined by MRG Africa to be at risk of statelessness. In 2015, the Republic of Uganda instituted the National Identification and Registration Authority, which issued identification cards to all members of constitutionally recognized Ugandan ethnic groups. The Maragoli, who are not recognized, struggle to access healthcare, education, financial services, legal documentation, and citizenship without identification cards. The eviction crisis they face is in part due to the difficulty of obtaining identification; without citizenship, Maragoli communities struggle to maintain legal ownership of their lands and prove entitlement to compensation when they are forcibly taken. By documenting the case of the Maragoli in Kiryandongo, my research aims to inform international human rights organizations and international publics, and to enable NGOs and activists in Africa to share information with each other and engage transnationally around these cases.
Arts and Humanities, Social Sciences
