Privatisation of the commons: land ownership, access, and exclusion among the Karrayu pastoralists of eastern Ethiopia

ABSTRACT

This study critically examines the effects of communal land privatisation and certification linked to the state-sponsored irrigation project in the pastoral area. It is based on ethnographic fieldwork among the Karrayu pastoralists in eastern Ethiopia. The findings indicate that subdivision and certification excluded many pastoral individuals and groups from accessing their ancestral land. Some were not allocated land; all, including those who were allocated a parcel, lost access to the rest of the land to which they previously had access; and some of those who were granted ownership rights were also unable to reap the full benefits of their holding due to structural-relational factors constraining their power to do so. Thus, the article suggests the importance of monitoring the process to protect the rights of disadvantaged groups as well as strengthening the customary tenure rather than rushing to replace it.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethiopia
• land distribution
• land certification
• irrigation project
• pastoralists

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the local administration and the Karrayu community for sharing their views and insightful information. We are also grateful to Asebe Regassa (PhD), Pip Bevan (PhD), and Catherine Dom for their valuable feedback and comments on the earlier version of this paper. We further thank Addis Ababa University for providing financial support to the corresponding author to carry out the fieldwork as part of his PhD project. Lastly, we are also grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets in this study are not publicly available to protect the privacy of the informants but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Notes

1 Ethiopian authors are cited using their first name.

Additional information

Funding

This work is part of the PhD research of the corresponding author, and Addis Ababa University provided grant support for data collection.

Notes on contributors

Tefera Goshu

Tefera Goshu is a lecturer in the department of Sociology at Ambo University, Ethiopia. He is also a PhD candidate in the Department of Social Anthropology at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. His project focuses on the interplay of the political economy of irrigation and pastoral development.

Ayalew Gebre

Ayalew Gebre (PhD) is an Associate Professor of Development Studies in the Department of Social Anthropology at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. He has conducted extensive research on the issues of pastoralism and pastoral development, resources-based conflict and conflict management in pastoral and agro-pastoral communities in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa.