The politics of believing: understanding how world views shape access to land and water in rural Uganda

How do we explain the gap that so often exists between the aspirations of development policies and realities on the ground? This QR-GCRF funded project contends that in part the answer is to take seriously people’s worldviews – their fundamental beliefs about life and reality. Working in partnership with colleagues from Makerere University, WaterAid Uganda, and the Land and Equity Movement in Uganda (LEMU), the research integrates different disciplinary lenses and methods to understand the relationship between people's worldviews and the multi-level governance dynamics that shape access to land and water in Eastern Uganda.

The research design combines a mix of social science methods, yearlong participant diary keeping, and storytelling to meaningfully engage rural Ugandans in the research process. The participant stories have been developed into digital learning and elicitation tools (audio and video performances), which are being used to run workshops and public radio shows with communities and district governance actors.

Taken together, the research aims to generate critical new knowledge about 1) how systems of land and water governance work in practice, 2) why land and water policies are seldom realised, 3) how to change governance systems to deliver more sustainable and equitable land and water reforms.