Paper short abstract:

This paper addresses interactions between the TDF and local communities around Lalibela during 5 months’ occupation. It focuses on governance negotiations, survival strategies and gendered relations. We argue that the competition of social orders during this episode.

Paper long abstract:

This paper addresses the interactions and negotiations between the Tigray Defense Force (TDF) and local populations and institutions during five months’ occupation from August to December 2021. It considers differences over space between the town of Lalibela and two rural communities to the South and North, and over time during different durations and phases of the occupation. We analyze data from 119 qualitative interviews from three perspectives. First, governance and the combined role of the Church, the traders, and civil society organizations, notably the iddir funerary associations, in jointly negotiating with the occupying forces the reestablishment of law and order, safeguarding essential travel across the war zones with laissez-passer letters, and providing minimal services and assistance to the neediest. We argue that effective and creative solutions were negotiated with the TDF leadership. Second, we assess different survival strategies based on location, occupation, wealth and status. We argue that certain individuals were able to build trust relationships with TDF leadership and soldiers as a coping strategy during. Third, we examine gendered relations of power arguing that the economic burden on women who migrated less increased but relations between the occupiers and women were less confrontational and more accommodative than with men.