Collaborative Autoethnography and Reclaiming an African Episteme: Investigating “Customary” Ownership of Natural Resources

Abstract

Collaborative autoethnography can function as a means of reclaiming certain African realities that have been co-opted by colonial epistemes and language. This can be significant in very concrete ways: northern Uganda is suffering a catastrophic loss of tree cover, much of which is taking place on the collective family landholdings that academia and the development sector have categorized as “customary land.” A collaboration by ten members of such landholding families, known as the Acholi Land Lab, explores what “customary ownership” means to them and their relatives, with a view to understanding what may be involved in promoting sustainable domestic use of natural resources, including trees.