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ABSTRACT
This paper argues that the current EPRDF/TPLF government emulates the imperial ambition of high-modernist development in Ethiopia’s “last” frontier – the pastoral lowlands. We show that two pillars of imperial state expansion continue to haunt Ethiopia’s post-imperial statecraft in the pastoral lowlands: the frontier rush and a high-modernist ambition. The frontier rush is characterized by emptying land for private and state appropriation. The model of high modernism underpins political projects of legitimating state rule, violent land appropriation and suppression of dissent in the pastoral frontier. Our empirical material combines a review of the literature on Ethiopia’s history of high-modernist ambitions with a detailed case study of contemporary land dispossessions in two sites of Lower Omo Valley in Southern Ethiopia. Our case study shows how government officials and company managers mobilize frontier imaginations and high-modernist terminology to justify large-scale relocations of pastoral communities.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Rony Emmenegger and Margo Huxley for helpful comments on previous versions of the manuscript. Asebe Regassa extends his gratitude to all research participants and field assistants in South Omo, Ethiopia. This research received funding through a postdoctoral Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship for Asebe Regassa, Dilla University and the Department of Geography, University of Zurich.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 A Gedeo elder from southern Ethiopia told us during an interview in January 2016.
2 Zewde, A History of Modern Ethiopia; Donham, “The Making of an Imperial State”; Tamirat, Church and State in Ethiopia.
3 On frontier dynamics in Ethiopia, both highland and lowlands, see: Markakis, Ethiopia: The Last Two Frontiers; Korf et al., “Re-Spacing African Drylands”; Gill, “Can the River Speak?”; Mosley and Watson, “Frontier Transformations”.
4 Zewde, A History of Modern Ethiopia; Tibebu, The Making of Modern Ethiopia; Hameso, Ethnicity in Africa; Hassen, “The Development of Oromo Nationalism”; Rahmato, “Land, Peasants and the Drive for Collectivization”; and Rahmato, Agrarian Reform in Ethiopia; Rahmato, The Peasant and the State.
5 Kloos, “Development, Drought, and Famine”; Clapham, “Ethiopian Development”; Fantini and Puddu, “Ethiopia and International Aid.”
6 Scott, Seeing Like a State, 88.
7 Markakis, Ethiopia: The Last Two Frontiers, classifies Ethiopia’s peripheries into two categories: the first frontiers comprise those highland areas in the conquered regions with some levels of economic integration into the center and at the same time being the epicenters of strong political and economic interest from the central governments. The second or “last” frontiers are pastoral and agro-pastoral regions in the country that have been geographically remote, economically marginal, socio-culturally distinct and been perceived as “ungoverned” by the central governments.
8 We allude here to a term used by Clapham in ‘Ethiopian development’, albeit Clapham uses it to describe the mimicking of foreign high-modernist development models in the emperor’s dreams of modernization in the late 19th century.
9 Scott, Seeing Like a State.
10 Mosley and Watson, Frontier transformations, p. 455.
11 See Kamski, “The Kuraz Sugar Development Project.”
12 Markakis, Ethiopia: The Last Two Frontiers.
13 Markakis, Ethiopia: The Last Two Frontiers.
14 Borras et al., “Towards a Better Understanding.”
15 Araghi, “Land Dispossession and Global Crisis.”
16 Ullendorff, The Ethiopians; Donham, “The Making of an Imperial State”; Hagmann, “Challenges of Decentralization in Ethiopia’s Somali Region.”
17 Scott, Seeing Like a State; see also Hagmann and Korf, “Agamben in the Ogaden”; Harawira, The New Imperial Order; Markakis, Ethiopia: The Last Two Frontiers.
18 Tibebu, The Making of Modern Ethiopia; Hameso, Ethnicity in Africa; Hassen, “The Development of Oromo Nationalism.”
19 Jalata, Oromo Nationalism and the Ethiopian Discourse.
20 Gudina, Ethiopia: Competing Ethnic Nationalism.
21 Gebre-Medhin, Peasants and Nationalism in Eritrea.
22 Ullendorff, The Ethiopians; Donham, “The Making of an Imperial State”; Markakis, Ethiopia: The Last Two Frontiers; Habecker, “Not Black, but Habasha.”
23 Donham, “Introduction”; Rahmato, The Peasant and the State.
24 Bulcha, “The Politics of Linguistic Homogenization”; Markakis, “Ethnic Conflict and the State.”
25 Crummey, Land and Society; Markakis, “The Military State.”
26 Donham, “The Making of an Imperial State,” pp. 39ff.
27 Donham, “The Making of an Imperial State”; Markakis, “The Military State”; Holcomb and Ibssa, Invention of Ethiopia; Zewde, A History of Modern Ethiopia; Rahmato, “Land, Peasants and the Drive for Collectivization.”
28 Ta'a, “Bribing the Land.”
29 Woldemeskel, “The Land System in Ethiopia.”
30 Bekele, An Economic History of Ethiopia; Ta'a, “Bribing the Land.”
31 Gebre-Mariam, “The Critical Issue of Land Ownership”; Clapham, “Ethiopian Development.”
32 Kloos, “Development, Drought, and Famine”; Said, “Resource-Use Conflict.”
33 Hagmann and Mulugeta, “Pastoral Conflicts and State-Building”; Markakis, Ethiopia: The Last Two Frontiers; Gebre, “The Effects of Development Projects.”
34 Behnke and Kerven, “Counting the Costs”; Fantini and Puddu, “Ethiopia and International Aid.”
35 Müller-Mahn et al., “Pathways and Dead Ends”; Hagmann and Speranza, “New Avenues for Pastoral Development”; Kassa, Among the Pastoral Afar in Ethiopia; Kloos, “Development, Drought, and Famine.”
36 According to Fantini and Puddu in “Ethiopia and International Aid,” the state encroachment to the Afar pastoralist frontier under the imperial regime was initially through cooptation of the local Afar chief, Ali Mirrah Hanfare, who later began opposing the companies’ massive expansion that eventually enhanced the central government’s control over the area.
37 “Land to the Tiller” was one of the defining radical mottos of the 1960s Ethiopian Students’ Movement (ESM) that eventually led to the overthrow of the feudal regime in 1974. See, Balsvik, Haile Selassie’s Students; Gudina, Ethiopia: Competing Ethnic Nationalism; Zewde, A History of Modern Ethiopia.
38 Crummey, Land and Society; Rahmato, The Peasant and the State.
39 Gebre-Mariam, “The Critical Issue of Land Ownership.”
40 Abbink, “Land to the Foreigners.”
41 On the EPRDF/TPLF’s own conception of “developmental state”, see: Zenawi, “African Development”; Zenawi, “States and Markets”; the critical anaylsis in Lefort, “Free Market Economy”; Fantini and Puddu, “Ethiopia and International Aid”; and, most recently, Clapham, “The Ethiopian Developmental State.”
42 Rahmato, Land to Investors.
43 See, Kamski, “The Kuraz Sugar Development Project”; Buffavand, “The Land Does Not Like Them”; Mosley and Watson, “Frontier Transformations.”
44 Abbink, “Land to the Foreigners”; Lavers, “Patterns of Agrarian transformation”;. Lavers, “Agricultural Investment in Ethiopia”; Lavers, “‘Land Grab’ as Development Strategy?”
45 Ethiopian Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, Growth and Transformation Plan, 2010; Strecker, “Implications of International Investors’ Code of Conduct”; Woldemariam and Gebresenbet, “Socio-Political and Conflict Implications”; Kamski, “Briefing Note 1.”
46 Woldemariam and Gebresenbet, “Socio-Political and Conflict Implications”; Zenawi, “Speech on Pastorialist Day”; Kamski, “Briefing Note 1.”
47 Markakis, Ethiopia: The Last Two Frontiers; Donham, “Introduction”; Strecker, “Implications of International Investors.”
48 Turton, “The Mursi and the Elephant Question”; Turton, “Wilderness, Wasteland or Home?”; Strecker, “Implications of International Investors.”
49 Turton, “Wilderness, Wasteland or Home?”
50 Girke, “Homeland, Boundary, and Resource”; Abbink, “Dam Controversies.”
51 Woldemariam and Gebresenbet, “Socio-Political and Conflict Implications.”
52 Kamski, “Briefing Note 1.”
53 Kamski, “Briefing Note 1.”
54 Woldemariam and Gebresenbet “Socio-Political and Conflict Implications.”
55 “Household” is a category that the government uses and that does not necessarily accord with how (agro-pastoralist) family networks are organized. See Emmenegger, “Decentralization and the Local Developmental State,” 269.
56 Kamski, “Briefing Note 1.”
57 Zenawi, “Speech on Pastoralists Day.”
58 Anonymous informant, Salamago, July 2015, translated from Mursi language.
59 Stevenson and Buffavand, “Do Our Bodies Know Their Ways?”
60 The government-owned Metal and Engineering Corporation (MetEC) is the main contractor while numerous subcontractors including the ‘German BMA Braunschweigische Maschinenbauanstalt AG, which specializes in sugar processing technology, Chinese construction and planning companies (e.g. Jiangxi Water & Hydropower Construction Company, China Communications Construction Company Ltd.)’ as well as other consultancy firms such as the Italian firms SGI and Sembenelli Consulting’ have also received sub contracts in the project. See, Kamski, “Briefing Note 1.”
61 Fantinni and Puddu, “Ethiopia and International Aid”; see also, Lavers, “Patterns of Agrarian Transformation in Ethiopia”; Lavers, “Agricultural Investment in Ethiopia.”
62 Anonymous expert, Jinka, July 2015, our translation from Amharic.
63 Zenawi, “Speech on Pastoralists Day”; Editorial, “Criticising Ethiopian Development for the Sake of Aesthetics Is Unsavoury”, Ethiopian Herald, 13 March 2016. http://www.ethpress.gov.et/herald/index.php/editorial-view-point/item/4039-criticising-ethiopian-development-for-the-sake-of-aesthetics-is-unsavoury.
64 Anonymous informant: Jinka, July 2015, translated from Mursi.
65 Anonymous elder, Jinka, July 2015, our translation from Amharic.
66 Kamski, “Briefing Note 1.”
67 ESAT News, “Inhumane Treatment of Indigenous People by Ethiopian Police,” 7 March 2016. http://ecadforum.com/2016/03/07/inhumane-treatment-of-indigenous-people-by-ethiopian-police/; See also: Oakland Institute, “New Report from State Department Details Widespread Human Rights Abuses in Ethiopia,” 9 May 2016. http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/new-report-state-department-details-widespread-human-rights-abuses-ethiopia.
68 Ethiopian Herald, Op cit.
69 Makki, “Power and Property”; Lavers, “Patterns of Agrarian Transformation in Ethiopia”; Gill, “Can the River Speak?”; Getu, “The Effects of Investment.”
70 Turton, “The Mursi and the Elephant Question”; Turton, “The Mursi and National Park Development”; Strecker, “Implications of International Investors.”
71 Regassa et al., ‘‘Civilizing’ the Pastoral Frontier.”
72 Anonymous elder in Gisma, January 2016, our translation from Tsamai language.
73 Government official in Jinka, South Omo, April 2015, our translation from Amharic.
74 Manager of Omo Sheleko agro-industry, June 2015, our translation from Amharic.
75 See, on this more generally, Emmenegger, “Decentralization and the Local Developmental State”; Rahmato, The Peasant and the State.
76 Interview with Executive Manager, July 2015, our translation from Amharic; emphasis added.
77 Zenawi, “Speech by Meles Zenawi.”
78 Puddu, “State Building, Rural Development.”
79 Hoyt, Animals in Peril, 186. See also: Kassa, Among the Pastoral Afar; Rettberg, Das Risiko der Afar.
80 Kloos, “Development, Drought, and Famine”; Fantini and Puddu, “Ethiopia and International Aid.”
81 Fantini and Puddu, “Ethiopia and International Aid.”
82 Abbink, “Land to the Foreigners”; Hagmann and Korf, “Agamben in the Ogaden”; Korf et al., “Re-Spacing African Drylands”; Markakis, Ethiopia: The Last Two Frontiers; Rahmato, The Peasant and the State.
83 Pankhurst and Piguet, Moving People in Ethiopia.
84 Chole, Underdevelopment in Ethiopia.
85 Makki, Development by Dispossession, 94.
86 On this more broadly, see Fantini and Puddu, “Ethiopia and International Aid.”
87 As Buffavand aptly notes, this applies to more hidden transcripts of contestation as well, if the latter remain ‘unheard by the power holders’. Buffavand, “The Land Does Not Like Them,” 488.
88 See Kamski, “The Kuraz Sugar Development Project.”
89 Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine. Ferguson’s argument is, of course, slightly different as he studies the complicity of the international aid machinery with postcolonial states.