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“Do Our Bodies Know Their Ways?” Villagization, Food Insecurity, and Ill-Being in Ethiopia’s Lower Omo Valley

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2018

Edward G. J. Stevenson Open the ORCID record for Edward G. J. Stevenson [Opens in a new window]  and
Lucie Buffavand
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Abstract:

This article investigates food security and well-being in the context of “development-forced displacement” in Ethiopia. In the lower Omo, a large hydroelectric dam and plantation schemes have forced people to cede communal lands to the state and business speculators, and indigenous communities have been targeted for resettlement in new consolidated villages. The authors carried out a food access survey in new villages and in communities not yet subjected to villagization and complemented this with ethnographic research carried out over a period of four years. The results of the two methodological approaches were inconsistent. The survey data suggest that household food access was poor in both places but better in villagization sites than in the other communities. The ethnographic research, however, suggests that village settlers were unable to feed themselves from the irrigated plots they were allotted and were therefore dependent on food aid. They spoke of indignity, bodily discomfort, and the severance of meaningful social relations. This article discusses the contrast between the information generated by the different research methods and asks how this tension relates to two major narratives about development: development as a process through which the state actualizes a national dream, and development as a process that creates affluence for some by impoverishing others.

Résumé:

Cet article étudie la sécurité alimentaire et le bien-être dans le contexte du « déplacement forcé par le développement » en Éthiopie. Dans la basse vallée de l’Omo, un grand barrage hydroélectrique ainsi que des projets de plantation ont obligé les habitants à céder des terres communales à l’État et à des spéculateurs commerciaux. Les communautés autochtones ont été ciblées pour être réinstallées dans de nouveaux villages consolidés. Les auteurs ont effectué une enquête sur l’accès à la nourriture dans les nouveaux villages et dans des communautés qui n’ont pas encore été soumises à la villagisation et ils ont complété l’étude avec des recherches ethnographiques réalisées sur une période de quatre ans. Les résultats des deux approches méthodologiques étaient contradictoires. Les données de l’enquête suggèrent que l’accès des ménages à la nourriture était médiocre dans les deux cas, mais meilleur dans les sites de villagisation que dans les autres communautés. La recherche ethnographique, cependant, suggère que les habitants des nouveaux villages ne parvenaient pas à se nourrir avec les parcelles irriguées qui leur avaient été attribuées et qu’ils dépendaient de l’aide alimentaire. Ils parlèrent d’indignité, d’inconfort corporel et de rupture de relations sociales significatives. L’article traite du contraste entre les informations générées par les différentes méthodes de recherche et interroge le rapport entre cette tension et les deux discours majeurs sur le développement: le développement en tant que processus par lequel l’État réalise un rêve national et le développement en tant que processus qui enrichi certains par l’appauvrissement des autres.

Keywords

Resettlementdisplacementfood securitypovertywell-beingecological changeresearch methodsEthiopia
Type
Articles
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 61 , Issue 1 , April 2018 , pp. 109 - 133
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2018 

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