Resource Deprivation and Changes in Pastoral Land Tenure Systems

Time: 11:30- 12:30
Venue: Main meeting room, CMI, Fantoftvegen 38  

The growth of agriculture have led to changes in land tenure mainly in better-watered areas and at certain locations along the banks of the Awash River which are suitable for irrigated agriculture. Changes have also taken place in the traditional pastoralist way of living and in the patterns of land use.

Many have become farmers and now exploit privately enclosed land for agriculture and controlled grazing, rather than the customary communally held ranges. With the process of land privatising underway, the well-watered sections of these neighbourhoods have almost entirely been enclosed and held by individual herdsmen. This seminar examines the process of transformation of the traditional resource tenure arrangements and its implications for the Karrayu pastoral way of life.

The seminar will be held by  Dr. Ayalew Gebre who is associate professor at the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Addis Ababa University. Gebre is currently a visitng researcher at CMI. Ayalew Gebre has a Ph.D. in Development Anthropology from the Institute of Social Studies (ISS), The Hague, The Netherlands (2001).  

His publications include:

Pastoralism Under Pressure: Land Alienation and Pastoral Transformations  among the Karrayu of Eastern Ethiopia, 1941 to the Present. Maastricht: SHAKER Publishing, 2001.  

"Conflict Management, Resolution and Institutions among the Karrayu and Their Neighbours", in Mohamed Salih, Ton Dietz, and Abdel Ghaffar Mahmed (eds) . AfricanPastoralism: Conflict, Institutions and Government. London: Pluto Press, 2001.  

"Community Knowledge and Perceptions about HIV/AIDS and Other Sexually  Transmitted Diseases (STDs) in Bahir Dar". Special Issue: HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia, Part I: Risk and Preventive Behavior, Sexuality, Opportunistic Infections.  Northeast African Studies (NEAS), Vol 7, No.1, 2004.