Power and property: commercialization, enclosures, and the transformation of agrarian relations in Ethiopia

Makki, Fouad

doi:10.1080/03066150.2011.652620

Cited by 87 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Most of the literature on state and non-state actors' encroachment to pastoralist areas in Africa emphasise the socio-economic and political impact of the new rush for the acquisition of pastoralist land (Abbink 2011;Lavers 2012;Makki 2012). We concur with the notion that the practices of nature commodification and monetisation that characterise the capitalistic mode of production, have been spreading even to peripheral regions in Africa, where typically pastoralist groups are to be found.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 65%

“They Have Stolen Our Land”

Debelo

Klute

Detona³

2018

ModAfr

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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 humanenvironment relations among the Afar pastoralists: from humanenvironment, 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.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 65%

“They Have Stolen Our Land”

Debelo

Klute

Detona³

2018

ModAfr

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“…How can investors lease hundreds of thousands of hectares of land while land is scarce? As recent land-leasing analyses warn (Makki 2012;Kelly and Peluso 2015), the government discursively creates "land abundance" while reality indicates otherwise, and materially avails new frontiers for capitalist expansion by forcefully displacing local resource users. Such procedures foster environmental injustices and human-rights violations, making it crucial to analyze resettlement processes and outcomes from the perspective of political ecology and environmental justice.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Whose Decisions, Whose Livelihoods? Resettlement and Environmental Justice in Ethiopia

Wayessa

Nygren

2015

Society & Natural Resources

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“…Studies from Africa and Asia have documented, albeit implicitly, in situ displacements related to contemporary land appropriations. Examples of such displacements include: large-and mega-scale land appropriations for commercial agriculture in the peripheral lowlands of Ethiopia, which have undermined the livelihoods of pastoralists by limiting the sizes of resources, for instance, land they can access [18,23]; appropriations of communal grazing and farmlands that have weakened the income and food security of smallholder farmers in Bako in Ethiopia [14]; 'multi-stage' dispossessions over longer periods that have had major cumulative effects on small producers in Bangladesh [51]; and out-grower schemes for biofuel and sugar cane in Ethiopia [18,52] and South Africa [53] that have exposed farmers' means of subsistence to new risks, including market vulnerability.…”

Section: Appropriation and In Situ Displacement: A Conceptual Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Ethiopia and elsewhere, inadequate compensation for appropriated land is a general problem [22,23,84]. The absence of compensation for many of the appropriations in Gera was clearly attributed to the claim that the state owns the forest and that the locals' use of it was therefore illegal [57,70].…”

Section: Livelihood Impacts Of Forestland Appropriationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By using coercive power to appropriate and allocate land and resources for 'development' or 'conservation,' state politics and elites have been playing a key role in driving processes of dispossession [47,48]. Overall, global processes coupled with domestic politics and economic and historical factors shape the nature and effects of land appropriations [17,23,41,49].…”

Section: Appropriation and In Situ Displacement: A Conceptual Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

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“Medium-Scale” Forestland Grabbing in the Southwestern Highlands of Ethiopia: Impacts on Local Livelihoods and Forest Conservation

Ango

2018

Land

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Abstract:Tropical forest provides a crucial portion of sustenance in many rural communities, although it is increasingly under pressure from appropriations of various scales. This study investigated the impacts of medium-scale forestland grabbing on local livelihoods and forest conservation in the southwestern highlands of Ethiopia. Data were generated through interviews, discussions and document review. The results indicate that state transfer of part of the forestland since the late 1990s to investors for coffee production created in situ displacement-a situation where farmers remained in place but had fully or partially lost access to forest-that disrupted farmers' livelihoods and caused conflicts between them and the investors. Court cases about the appropriated land and related imprisonment, inflicted financial and opportunity costs on farmers. Farmers considered the livelihood opportunities created by the companies insufficient to compensate for loss of forest access. Companies' technology transfers to farmers and contributions to foreign currency earnings from coffee exports have not yet materialized. Forest conservation efforts have been negatively affected by deforestation caused by conversion to coffee plantations and by farmers' efforts to secure rights to forestland by more intensive use. The medium-scale forestland grabbing has been detrimental to farmers' livelihoods and forest conservation in a way that recalls criticism of large-and mega-scale land grabbing since [2007][2008]. The overall failure to achieve the objectives of transferring forestland to investors highlights a critical need to shift institutional supports to smallholders' informal forest access and management practices for better development and conservation outcomes.

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Power and property: commercialization, enclosures, and the transformation of agrarian relations in Ethiopia

Cited by 87 publications

References 17 publications

“They Have Stolen Our Land”

“They Have Stolen Our Land”

Whose Decisions, Whose Livelihoods? Resettlement and Environmental Justice in Ethiopia

“Medium-Scale” Forestland Grabbing in the Southwestern Highlands of Ethiopia: Impacts on Local Livelihoods and Forest Conservation

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