Land conflict remains one of the most pervasive and destabilizing forces in Uganda's rural communities, undermining household welfare, social cohesion, and economic productivity in ways that formal statistics inadequately capture. In Kigezi Region-a densely populated highland area in south-western Uganda comprising Kabale, Kisoro, Rukiga, and Rubanda districts; the combination of land scarcity, population pressure, cultural inheritance norms, gender discrimination, and weak land governance creates a particularly volatile conflict environment where disputes routinely spiral from minor boundary disagreements into multigenerational feuds that consume families financially, emotionally, and socially. This qualitative study investigates the drivers of land conflict progression among households in Kigezi Region, employing an interpretive phenomenological design to capture the lived experiences, emotions, perceptions, and coping strategies of community members enmeshed in land disputes. Data were collected through 42 in-depth interviews and 6 focus group discussions with purposively sampled participants including household heads, women, youth, elders, local council leaders, and land tribunal officers. Thematic analysis using NVivo 12 was employed to generate rich, grounded interpretations of conflict progression dynamics. Findings reveal that land conflicts in Kigezi Region are driven by a complex interplay of inheritance disputes, boundary encroachments, population-induced land fragmentation, corruption in land administration, gender discrimination in land rights, alcohol-fuelled dispute escalation, and the emotional trauma of displacement and dispossession. Participants described feelings of helplessness, anger, shame, and hopelessness that compound material losses and generate intergenerational cycles of grievance. The study concluded that addressing land conflict in Kigezi Region requires not only legal and administrative reforms but culturally sensitive, trauma-informed conflict transformation approaches that address the emotional and relational dimensions of land dispossession alongside its legal manifestations.