Land and Political Economy Collective Output Project

About the Project

The Land and Political Economy Collective Output Project included Hub Members from four separate research projects working together and was inspired by the Livelihood, Land and Rights stream in the Hub. This collective work and research stream emerged out of the realisation that “post-conflict” countries are often characterised by other forms of violence and conflict, particularly violations of economic and social rights, which post-conflict justice has failed to address sufficiently. The projects were motivated by renewed assertions of the indivisibility of rights, which challenge the traditional division of civil and political rights, and economic, social and cultural rights. Therefore, research projects under the stream sought to address the following gaps in gender justice and security: property rights beyond transitional justice; land rights and gender justice; and justice beyond the formal legal system.

About The Livelihood, Land and Rights Research Stream

Focusing on experiences in Colombia, Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone and Ugada, the following projects were implemented under this stream and discussed in this collective output project:

Land reform, peace, and informal institutions in rural Colombia, led by Camilo Sanchez (DeJusticia, Colombia)
When women do not own land: Land ownership and women’s empowerment in Sri Lanka, led by Mario Gomez (International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Sri Lanka)
Land policy, gender and plural legal systems in Sierra Leone, led by Mohamed Sesay (York University, Canada) and Simeon Koroma (Timap for Justice, Sierra Leone)
Beyond war Compensation: Gender and the challenge of social economic and cultural rights in post-conflict Northern Uganda, led by Josephine Ahikire (Makerere University) and Stephen Oola (Amani Institute Uganda)

This work is motivated by renewed assertions of the indivisibility of rights, which challenges the traditional division of civil and political rights, and economic, social and cultural rights.

Key Themes

While the research projects were single case studies in Colombia, Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone, and Uganda, a number of overlapping issues across the cases were investigated. Some projects explored the relationship between land ownership, power relations, and gender disparities in agency, empowerment, and wellbeing. With specific attention to experiences of disadvantaged communities such as landless women and war-affected populations, these property relations were interrogated beyond the formal institutional settings to account for experiences in the informal sector, customary systems, and indigenous communities.

Some devoted attention to the impact of global capital on the struggles for land rights and social justice within the context of neoliberal development, recognising both the structural constraints and agency of marginalised communities. Others examined contestation over heritage and religious sites in post-war societies, including the struggles to build inclusive peace. Each project considered the broader political, sociolegal, and economic contexts in which contestations over land and property rights play out, including the global capitalist economy, regime type, legal pluralism, and underdevelopment. Many also took a historical perspective that situates struggles of social, economic, and cultural rights within a broader history of colonialism, state formation, and deep-rooted patriarchal structures. All projects adopted interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary approaches to analyse the issues from political economy, legal, cultural, sociological, and gender perspectives.

The Land and Political Economy Project provided a space for Hub Members from multiple projects in the research stream to discuss key issues around land, political economy, gender justice, and inclusive peace. During project workshops held at Hub Conventions the group engaged in dialogue about various issues including gender and access to land/land justice; different land tenure systems and customary and indigenous land issues; local economies and global capitalism and commercial interests in land. These sessions supported collaboration across Hub projects and informed the overall work of the Livelihoods, Land and Rights stream as well as Hub Members’ research projects.

Policy relevance and impact were built into the activities and outputs of the stream, from the project conceptualisation to processes of implementation. Active participants and project leaders included local practitioners and communities, who helped to co-design research, co-author outputs, and disseminate outputs widely. This ensured buy-in and contributions by practitioners from the outset and throughout project implementation. The outputs were disseminated via workshops, the hub website, and through policy briefs, opinion pieces and academic articles, to scholars and practitioners.