Securing Tenure, Sustainable Peace? The Challenges of Localizing Land-Registration in Conflict-Affected Burundi and Eastern DR Congo

The proposed research project aims to analyse the challenges of localized land registration in conflict-affected settings, and how policy makers and development organizations deal with these. It complements technical know-how on land registration with insights from the social sciences, on how land governance reform not only affects tenure security, but interacts with conflict patterns. The main research questions are: - How do new approaches to localize land registration shape tenure security in conflict-affected settings? This question looks at how programmes interact with patterns of access, claim-making and local institutional change. It pays particular attention to the impacts on vulnerable groups. - In conflict-affected settings, how do new approaches to localize land registration impact on the occurrence and nature of local land-related disputes? This question connects local patterns of land conflict to broader antagonisms and politics of belonging. - How do different actors on the ground take up, interact with, renegotiate or resist these new approaches? This question pays particular attention to the response of local elites, and discursive strategies of claim making. - How can (inter)national development organizations, donors, and local governments better take account of these dynamics? This question zooms in on the ways in which intervening agencies anticipate, monitor and adjust to the impacts of their programmes on tenure security and land conflict.