Frontiers of Extraction and Contestation: dispossession, exclusion and local resistance against MIDROC Laga-Dambi Gold Mine, southern Ethiopia

Resource frontiers in Ethiopia have served as spaces of state power consolidation and wealth accumulation and as manifestations of asymmetrical power relations between state and society. Successive Ethiopian regimes pursued high-modernist development models under broader narratives of civilizing ‘backward’ societies and ‘transforming’ ‘unproductive’ spaces into productive resources. Although much of state intervention in the pastoralist frontiers was effected through large-scale commercial farming, extractive industries have become another dimension of frontier expansion. Ethiopia's liberalization of its mining economy in the 1990s has attracted private investors to the politically marginalized peripheries in the country. Accordingly, MIDROC Laga-Dambi Gold Mine, the largest private gold-producing company in the country, was in 1997 granted a 20-year lease over 485 km2 of land in Guji zone, Oromia National Regional State. The company soon developed an exclusionary approach in its relations with local communities with little investment in social services, local employment and environmental sustainability. On the contrary, its strong link to the macro-political order and reliance on coercive power in subduing local resistance enabled it to create an enclave where it operated without accountability for two decades. This paper analyzes the interplay between the macro-political order and local practices and power constellations at the mining site, and how such interplay reconfigured state-society relations, leading to conflict and eventual suspension of the mining company's license in May 2018. The paper argues that the company's exclusionary approach was rooted within the political formation of the Ethiopian state that considers such territories as resource frontiers (full of resources but empty of people). The paper asks how questions of entitlement at the local level, mining micro politics, and the national political order are entangled and produce different forms of contestation and negotiation. It concludes that this entanglement shapes how mining companies operate and also how states formulate mining policies

Competing orders and conflicts at the margins of the State: Inter-group conflicts along the Ethiopia-Kenya border

In this paper, the interplay between various competing orders among three ethnic groups on the margins of the Ethiopian state that have overlapping presence along the Ethiopia-Kenya border is analysed. The paper probes into complex and intertwined causes of inter-group conf licts by going beyond the commonly asserted resource scarcity and ethnicity assumptions, arguing that any attempt to establish sustainable peace becomes futile without assessing inter-group conf lict within a context including historical, environmental, political, economic, cultural and institutional dimensions. The paper also conceptualises the state as an active player in inter-group relations, as it plays a fundamental role in instigating and/or resolving conf licts based on its political, economic and strategic interests. Taking the case of inter-group conf licts among three groups inhabiting border areas along southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya, and by employing actor-oriented perspectives, the paper argues that the involvement of competing interests and claims on the side of the Ethiopian state, local communities and individuals, both in the instigation of conf licts and peacebuilding processes further complicates the situation. It concludes that inter-group conf lict and attempts at peacebuilding in the region are to a large extent inf luenced by national political dynamics, changes in traditional institutions and cross-border relations.Keywords: Inter-group conf lict, peacebuilding, competing orders, Ethiopia-Kenya border

“They Have Stolen Our Land” Enclosure, Commodification and Patterns of Human-Environment Relations among Afar Pastoralists in Northeastern Ethiopia

This paper takes enclosure and commodification processes of “nature” one step beyond a political economy perspective conceptualising them from ontological notions of nature-culture relations. Taking the case of enclosure for large-scale commercial agriculture schemes and a game reserve in northeastern Ethiopia, the paper argues that enclosure and nature commodification are part of neoliberal environmental governance that has been built on the notion of subduing nature and subaltern groups into the power of capitalism. More specifically, while the economic and political dimensions of these processes are salient, the ontological notions of the natureculture dualism has been invoked by states in their justification of expropriating pastoralist lands, thus nullifying indigenous people’s claim to ancestral homelands. The data for this paper was collected from 2013 to 2016 through ethnographic fieldwork, mainly conducted by the authors. The findings show oscillating perceptions of humane-environment relations among the Afar pastoralists: from human-environment, conjointly constituted by humans and non-humans, to the utilitarian dualist approach of environmental use which is mainly caused by the infiltration of capitalist economy and state driven development and conservation projects

Competing orders and conflicts at the margins of the State : inter-group conflicts along the Ethiopia-Kenya border

In this paper, the interplay between various competing orders among three ethnic groups on the margins of the Ethiopian state that have overlapping presence along the Ethiopia-Kenya border is analysed. The paper probes into complex and intertwined causes of inter-group conflicts by going beyond the commonly asserted resource scarcity and ethnicity assumptions, arguing that any attempt to establish sustainable peace becomes futile without assessing inter-group conflict within a context including historical, environmental, political, economic, cultural and institutional dimensions. The paper also conceptualises the state as an active player in inter-group relations, as it plays a fundamental role in instigating and/or resolving conflicts based on its political, economic and strategic interests. Taking the case of inter-group conflicts among three groups inhabiting border areas along southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya, and by employing actor-oriented perspectives, the paper argues that the involvement of competing interests and claims on the side of the Ethiopian state, local communities and individuals, both in the instigation of conflicts and peacebuilding processes further complicates the situation. It concludes that inter-group conflict and attempts at peacebuilding in the region are to a large extent influenced by national political dynamics, changes in traditional institutions and cross-border relations

Living with conflict: Borana's resilience in Southern Ethiopia

Conflict has become a defining feature of pastoralist frontiers in East Africa since the 1990s. The interplay between multilayered actors and factors and the existence of competing interests in instigating conflicts and in the process of building peace have complicated intergroup relations in the region. The conflicts exhibit the convergence of state and non-state actors and natural as well as human drivers of conflicts. While grappling with traditional as well as emerging forms of conflict, the Borana pastoralist community of southern Ethiopia has devised different strategies of coping with conflict and violence by building on social networks, cultural capital, cross-border identity bonds, and alliances. This article discusses the agency, resilience, and coping mechanisms of the community in the context of conflict and violence by focusing on locally generated knowledge. It argues that conflict and violence build the agency of local communities, create new alliances, re(build) institutions, and reconfigure state-society relations

Self-determination, multinational federalism and an emerging threat in Ethiopia: A decolonial approach

With the coming to power of Abiy Ahmed in April 2018 following a popular movement that was initially sparked in Oromia and then spread to other regions, there was a short period of euphoria over the country's political landscape. Ethiopians and the international community alike were optimistic of democratic transition that would lead to the opening up of political and media spaces, fair and free elections, consolidation of the multinational federal system, the strengthening of autonomy of regional states, peace and stability, equitable resource distribution and equal socioeconomic opportunities for citizens. But, to the dismay of many observers, Abiy and his entourages shifted the narrative to the restoration of imperial system rather than strengthening the already existing multinational federal system. The return to imperial imaginations is both discursively and practically evident in Ethiopia's political discourses, in particular since 2018. Polarized political views between supporters and critics of multinational federalism have not only created a tense political environment but also partly contributed to the war in Tigray and Oromia. The country's three-decade long experiment with the federal system now faces a serious challenge of reversal. As the thesis and antithesis of multinational federalism have become salient forces shaping the country's political order, this article seeks to contribute to the existing debate, in particular contextualizing the discussion within decolonial literature. I argue that the current controversy over the nature of state structure is part of the struggle between forces promoting the right to self-determination and those favoring a unitary system

Competing epistemologies: conservationist discourses and Guji Oromo’s sacred cosmologies

Due to the ecological challenges faced by many around the globe, environmental conservation has now become an important priority among politicians, academicians, practitioners, and local communities in different cultural and livelihood contexts. Nevertheless, there is no clear consensus about the place of human beings in the environment and the best approach needed to avert ecological problems that arise from anthropogenic factors. While most mainstream Western notions of environmental conservation emphasize a human–nonhuman dualism, most indigenous cosmologies holistically embrace human, nonhuman, and supernatural beings as integral parts or ‘societies of nature’. Moreover, most conceptualizations of nature among indigenous peoples are deeply rooted in their beliefs, norms, values, and customs, which are performed and enacted in rituals that convey profound interconnectedness between humans and nature. Taking Nech Sar National Park in southern Ethiopia as a case study, this paper examines the conmicts and collaborations of different environmental epistemologies, namely the government’s conservationist discourse and local sacred cosmologies. Based on data from ethnographic research conducted among the Guji Oromo of southern Ethiopia, I argue that the Guji Oromo living in the Nech Sar National Park negotiate and/or appropriate governmental conservationist rhetoric as a pragmatic strategy to maneuver the government’s conservation practices for their advantage

Contesting Views on a Protected Area Conservation and Development in Ethiopia

social science

Epistemological and methodological considerations in peacebuilding research – experiences from the Borana of Ethiopia

Building on empirical data from author's fieldwork along the Ethiopia-Kenya border, this chapter provides epistemological and methodological insights to peacebuilding research and calls for a paradigm shift towards culture-sensitive approaches. It argues that researching peacebuilding in Africa should consider local cultural settings and epistemological paradigms by carefully designing appropriate methodological approaches. Drawing on this latter perspective, the author argues that peacebuilding research among societies with intact indigenous cultural practices, values and customs should be grounded within the societies' epistemological and cosmological orientations of their place in nature. First, the author visited Borana land along the Ethiopia-Kenya border in 2015 to conduct research on cross-border conflict funded by the African Peacebuilding Network

Ethnicity and inter-ethnic relations. The ‘Ethiopian experiment’ and the case of the Guji and Gedeo

This study deals with ethnicity and inter-ethnic relations in African context, with particular emphasis on the new ‘Ethiopian Experiment’ of ethnic politics. The study challenges the already existing thoughts on ethnicity, which map the concept on contours of polar extremes and suggests an approach to transcend the primordialist/constructivist perspectives. It is argued that in the face of rising ethnic politics in Africa, and particularly in Ethiopia where everything is ethinified, ethnicity can no longer remain only an analytical concept nor can inter-ethnic relations be understood separately from the political context. This study thus makes use of ethnicity both in analytical and political contexts. The concepts of politicised ethnicity or ‘Formal Ethnicism’ and its policy instrument - ‘Ethnic Federalism’ - are used in drawing the contours of national discourse on ethnicity and the dynamics of local inter-ethnic relations, taking the Guji-Gedeo relations in Southern Ethiopia as a case study. In this study, I agued that with the politicisation of ethnicity in the country’s political scene, particularly following its articulation in a formal political programme of the government in 1991, ethnic entrepreneurs activated elements of dichotomies at the expense of mutual co-existences like the Guji-Gedeo case. The historical relationship between the Guji and Gedeo ethnic groups has been examined in the context of economic interdependence, sharing some elements of cultural practices, political allegiances, belief in ancestral curse in case of homicide and myth of common ancestor. It also addresses the 1990s conflicts between the two groups drawing lines of connection between the national discourse on ethnicity and the local realities. This study also casts some light on the convergence between ethnicity and indigenousness in an African context, both concepts inconveniently sidelined by the bogus ambitions of post-colonial African leaders who try to build ‘nation-states’ at the expense of the rights of their member groups