"Highland Farmers and the ""Modernizing"" State in Ethiopia: Conjunctures and Disjunctures"

"This study is a detailed and two-pronged look of the cultural and political relations between indigenous social institutions and practices of highland farmers in Warra Himanu, South Wallo Administrative Zone, and successive regime forms of the ""modernizing"" state in Ethiopia. With regard to farmers in Warra Himanu, the study examines the cultural and political history of the area, indigenous knowledge of the environment relating to the production of livelihood, and the various cultural values and social institutions that underlie the constitution and organization of local communities. Insofar as the ""modernizing"" state is concerned, the study describes the discourses and policy orientations of each its three main incarnations: the ""reforming"" monarchy (1900--1974), the military ""Marxist-Leninist"" regime (1974--1991), and the ""ethno-federalist"" regime (since 1991). In each case, the regime's defining ""modernizing"" discourses deployed to create public meanings about the projected direction of ""development"" or ""progress,"" the nature of its policies towards farmers, and the corresponding mode of elite politics are examined to reveal the great extent to which all of these have been driven by the changing context of global power politics and cultural flows. As a whole, the study underscores the implications of the disjunctures and conjunctures between the discourses and practices of the ""modernizing"" state and farmers' social and cultural lives both for the nature and effectivity of state power and for the strength and durability of farmers' local communities and their participations in the politics of ""modernization."""

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Anthropology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Wolde-Medhin, Tesfaye

Contributors dc:contributor

• Gottlieb, Alma

• Economics, Agricultural

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3153465

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/85263