Policy-makers expect women and female-headed households to be particularly likely to suffer from land rights insecurity in Africa. This problem can be especially exacerbated in societies recovering from past conflict: when communities experience a shock to the number of young men who can engage in productive labour (due to death or injury), female household heads sustain many families. We study how the experience with land disputes compares for female-headed and male-headed households. We base our analysis on a survey with 1,260 households in two districts in Northern Uganda (Dokolo and Oyam). We focus on three different kinds of experience with land-related disputes and differences between male and female headed households: first, what type and number of land disputes do household heads report? Second, what strategies do household heads employ to solve land-related disputes? Third, to what extent are these disputes solved, and how satisfied are the household heads with these solutions? Our findings shed light on common problems male and female-headed households face with regard to land disputes, but also the particular challenges and strategies of female-headed households as compared to their male counterparts. Our results inform gendered perspectives on land-based investments, showing where civil society and stakeholders can expect particular vulnerabilities of female-headed households.

FLORIAN KERN

Florian Kern is a Reader (Associate Professor) at the Department of Government and a fellow at the Michael Nicholson Centre for Conflict and Cooperation of the University of Essex. He is also a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Department of Methodology, London School of Economics. He received his PhD from the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Konstanz. He also hold an MA from Johns Hopkins University SAIS. His main research interest lies in governance, the political economy of development, and conflict, with a regional focus on Africa and indigenous North America. He employs a variety of approaches, combining applied qualitative and quantitative methods, surveys, case studies, and fieldwork. His most recent work focuses on domestic sources of foreign policy formulation in Africa, land rights, as well as research transparency in qualitative methods. With colleagues, he runs the Multilingualism, Conflict and Conflict Resolution in Africa project (MCCRA), funded by an ESRC Large Research Grant (2.5 million GBP, 2023-2027). With his colleague Hannah Gibson, Kern organises the Africa Special Interest Group (ASIG), the hub for research on Africa at the University of Essex. He also founded the Age and Power in Africa (AaPiA) group. Since 2024, he is on the research committee of the British Institute in Eastern Africa (BIEA), one of the British Academy's International Research Institutes (BIRI). With Mwita Chacha, he has also started the International Politics in Africa research network. In recent years, his research has been generously supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the ESRC Global Challenges Research Fund, the Robert Bosch Foundation, the German Foundation for Peace Research (DSF), the Gerda Henkel Foundation, and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).