Ethiopia: When a Traditional Past Collides with an Irrigated Future. A short stroll away from the bloated Omo River in Ethiopia’s far south, a new type of settlement is forming on the outskirts of Kangaton, a frontier town occupied by Nyangatom people and highland migrants. The empty domes are traditionally built: bent sticks lashed together with strips of bark and insulated with straw. But instead of the typical handful of huts ringed by protective thorn bushes, hundreds of new homes are clustered on the desolate plain. This is a site in the Ethiopian government’s villagisation programme, part of an attempt to effect radical economic and social change in the Lower Omo Valley, an isolated swathe of spectacular ethnic diversity. Agro-pastoralists such as the Nyangatom, Mursi and Hamer are being encouraged to abandon their wandering, keep smaller and more productive herds of animals, and grow sorghum and maize on irrigated plots with which officials promise to provide them on the banks of the Omo. The grass is greener The government, now rapidly expanding its reach into territory only incorporated into the state a little over a century ago, says it will provide the services increasingly available to millions of other Ethiopians: roads, schools, health posts, courts and police stations. But critics, such as academic David Turton, argue that this state-building is more akin to colonial exploitation than an enlightened approach to the development of marginalised people. (via Ethiopia: When a Traditional Past Collides with an Irrigated Future | Think Africa Press)
Posted on: Sun, 25 Aug 2013 10:05:24 +0000
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