Land as Relationship, Not Property: The Politics of Land Justice among the Lugbara of Omugo Sub-County, Terego District, Uganda

Contemporary gender and development programs in Sub-Saharan Africa often rely on Eurocentric frameworks that view gender solely through the lens of patriarchal dominance, frequently overlooking the nuance of indigenous safety nets. This article challenges these binary models by examining how customary land stewardship systems inform male participation and household livelihood resilience in Uganda. Drawing on qualitative doctoral field data from Omugo Sub-County, Terego District, the study utilizes an Indigenous Narrative Research Design (INRD) consisting of Kwete sharing circles, council of elders’ dialogues, key informant interviews, and Parish Development Model (PDM) group narrative sessions. The 77 participants comprised of 39 women and 38 men. The empirical evidence reveals that customary Lugbara land distribution is inherently relational rather than exclusively male-dominated. Historically, land access and usage rights flowed through matri-central allocations and maternal lineage provisions, embedding vital social safety nets for vulnerable or returning women. This customary architecture stands in direct tension with recent national legal instruments, particularly the Succession (Amendment) Act, 2022, which enforces individualistic, gender-neutral statutory divisions. However, top-down statutory legal interventions and external rights-focused programming have inadvertently disrupted this architecture, correlating locally with rising marital separation, land litigation, and the marginalization of young men from land access. By centering the indigenous philosophy of Ama-tualu (relational interconnectedness), this article argues for a paradigm shift away from adversarial, individualized land tenure models toward relational gender reciprocity. Ultimately, the study proposes a braided model of legal recognition that codifies indigenous safety-net obligations rather than displacing them, offering a transferable framework for rethinking gendered land security across agrarian Sub-Saharan Africa.