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Accepted Paper:
Adapting to private acquisition of communal land in Ethiopia
Alemmaya Mulugeta
(JACS horn of Africa )
Paper short abstract:
no short abstract
Paper long abstract:
In the lowlands of Ethiopia, it is argued that private acquisition of land by outsiders has the potential to cause conflict over resources. However, case studies in the area have shown that conflicts due to private land acquisitions are rarely been violent, and remained at a low level. In an attempt to find out why, the research looked into how local people in lowland pastoralist areas are adapting to the wave of private land acquisition. Preliminary results from the study show that local people living in an extremely variable environment developed their own mechanisms for adapting to land acquisition and related factors causing land use changes: pastoralists are responding by changing the ways they group themselves, and by rapidly engaging in transforming their land use. For instance, clan leadership which assumed in principle the entire responsibility for land distribution, is gradually including local state authorities in dealing with land distribution and governance and changing its views on restrictive communal property ownership. This element of local people's' agency has so far been neglected in policy and scholarly debate. Such changes and social adaptation do not apply to all lowlands but are becoming a trend that requires attention particularly because of its relevance for the mitigation of conflicts in the lowlands.
Large-scale land acquisitions and related resource conflicts in Africa
Session 1