Environmental economies, survival ecologies, and economic interests in pastoral Uganda: the justice question in the socio-environmental governance of pastoral resources of Karamoja

Abstract

This paper presents a departure from the historical cataloguing of scarcity and poverty, as definitive frames of Karamoja sub-region of Uganda; a narrative that purports to portray the duo as natural, permanent and insurmountable features of the sub-region. This study demonstrates that these were both created in and projected onto the sub-region. The study provides evidence to the fact that; 1. Externally-driven pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial undertakings (which are underrated in many analyses on Karamoja) are the building blocks of the protracted conflicts, insecurities and ecological damages that ravaged Karamoja; 2. The sub-region offers more potentials than limitations as studies on Karamoja tend to portray. This research report is an invitation to both inward and outward looking (of Karamoja) for diagnosis and solutions. Inspired by critical realism and environmental justice theories, the study interrogates policies, mentalities, actions and inactions that fostered economic and ecological exploitation of Karamoja; endangering environmental and social ecologies of the sub-region. Attention is paid to how these jeopardised the environment-based economy of the sub-region’s population, while highlighting the human, ecological and economic potentials that need and deserve collective action for social and environmental re-address.