A Trapped Land. The Multiple Faces of Struggle and Resistance over Land in Nechisar National Park of Southern Ethiopia

A TRAPPED LAND: THE MULTIPLE FACES OF STRUGGLES AND RESISTANCES OVER LAND IN NNP OF SOUTHERN ETHIOPIABy: Bayisa Feye1SummaryThis thesis analyses contending actors in and around a protected area created out of already-contested space in which the actors continually find themselves trapped. Anthropological fieldwork was conducted in a phased approach between 2015 and 2019 in and around Nechisar National Park (NNP) in Ethiopia. The primary focus was to identify active actors making claims in various forms for land that is currently part of NNP. The NNP was formed by the government in a top-down decision that did not include or regard any concerns of the resource users. Several management approaches, ranging from fortress to market-based to convivial conservation have been utilized in an effort to sustainably conserve the challenges facing NNP. Beyond resource-use struggles, the complex politics of ethnic territorialisation, in use since 1992, have resulted in complicated pathways to resolving conflicts between actors. The actors are diverse, both in their claims and the locations from which they act. Therefore a political ecological approach was adopted to map out the stakes of all actors and their overlapping claims; then a theory of resistance was adopted to analyse the various strategies for refuting the imposed curtailments of resources. This study found that nonconsensual and politically motivated evictions or resettlements—while voicing conservation rhetoric—are in fact counter-productive in that they escalate the struggles over resources in the NNP across time. Beginning from the NNP's formation in 1974, local communities have staged various levels and forms of resistance against the curtailment of resources in the name of conservation. Resistance strategies adopted by local communities range from open confrontation on one hand to subtle circulation of gossip and cursing on the other hand. Common acts of local resistance usually target an imposed power that results in some temporary shifting of positions between the dominant and the dominated. This thesis also reveals the possibility that daily resistance efforts may result in the eventual collapse of the curtailed resource itself, as exemplified by the extinction of Swayne's Hartebeest from NNP since 2018. The research found that the forms of claim-making are diverse, with most embedded in the history and experience of local communities. At the heart of such grassroots resistance is the role of fundamental resources, such as grass and land, and its place in the life and livelihood of local contending actors. As possession of land and cattle defines almost every aspect of Kore and Guji lives, respectively, every member of both communities aspires to acquire more land and access grass fields. Conflicts over access to these vital resources brings contending actors into conflict over spaces adjacent and inside the park. Collaborations and temporary alliances formations between contending actors are revealed as a means of strengthening shared claims over the status of land in the park. [Key words: Nechisar National Park, struggles, actors, territorialisation, local conflicts] 1 Bayisa Feye is currently a PhD candidate at the department of Sociocultural Anthropology (KU Leuven), and from Arba Minch University of Southern Ethiopia.Email:feyebayisa@yahoo.co.uk

Publication year:2021

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