Identity Assertions and Resource Claims in the Context of Oil Production: A Comparative Study of Bunyoro in Uganda and Turkana in Kenya

Since the start of the major oil explorations in the two East African locations of Bunyoro and Turkana in 2006, there have been significant discussions on resource claims, identities, and competitions at local, regional, and global levels. These discussions have illuminated on the various strategies adopted by the local communities in the respective regions to assert their common identities to exert their claims to the control over local resources. Different levels of claims and strategies have been mobilised to negotiate a share of both the national “cake”, in the form of access to oil, and locally produced resources. This chapter sets out to explore the broader issues around identity assertions and resource claims within Bunyoro in Uganda and Turkana in Kenya. Using historical and comparative approaches, and casting these within the dynamics around oil production in the two locations, the chapter interrogates the various strategies, centred on the narratives of inclusion and exclusion, that are adopted by the respective communities in their bid to negotiate for a share of the revenue in the two countries. The chapter analyses the strategies by which the Bunyoro and Turkana organise themselves along ethnic lines in the pursuit of collective social, economic, and political claims from the national governments, as well as make attempts to regain control over local resources. It outlines how the wave of global oil production in Bunyoro and Turkana engendered new forms of ethnic mobilisation in the respective areas. This analysis draws from the competitive models of ethnic relations that emphasise the role of resource competition in the formation and mobilisation of ethnic groups. It investigates how certain aspects related to the debates around oil and other resources in Bunyoro and Turkana have restructured economic and political competition in ways that emphasise linguistic, religious, and cultural differences among populations, and, in turn, encouraged mobilisation on the basis of ethnicity. The ways in which these claims continue to appeal to redefinitions of citizenship and belonging as well as to issues of self-determination constitute fundamental questions.