Introduction: Resources Belong to the People: Mobility, Identity and Conflict Resolution in Africa

The discovery of oil in the East African Albertine region, where Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania intersect, has resulted in conflict and disruption to the region that has defined and re-defined identity and citizenship. As is extensively discussed, land is about livelihood on the African continent, but the scholarship tends to prioritize understanding land, and land and resource conflict, from the perspective of the state, institutions and the policy environment, rather than from the perspective of the people. Important as understanding the impact of the state, institutions and the policy environment in the arena of land conflict is, there is additional need to understand land conflict from the perspective of those most affected in order to develop responses that are most relevant to the lived experience of people. Understanding the resource contestation from the perspective of the people necessarily requires us to engage with customary systems of governance and conflict resolution and how these function within state systems.