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Landscape, Culture and Development: Konso, Ethiopia

Dr Liz Watson's twin interests in development issues and in the history, culture and politics of Africa have come together in an in-depth, ethnographic study of the landscape and people of Konso, in southern Ethiopia.

Here, she examines the human processes that have constructed the intensive agriculture of Konso, on a range of mountains that rise out of the Rift Valley. The Konso have developed a combination of soil and water conservation structures, including stone terraces, rain-water harvesting, square-ridged basins, manuring, intercropping and agro-forestry, to obtain food from land they cultivate permanently, and which has fairly low and unpredictable rainfall. These techniques employ high levels of labour, and much of it is carried out communally.

The location of Konso in Ethiopia (map: Ian Agnew).
Location of Konso in Ethiopia

This work has examined the social institutions that organize land and labour, and has identified that Konso ritual leaders, previously thought of by anthropologists as priests, also play a key role in the construction of this intensive agricultural landscape.

In recent years, Konso, like many other parts of Ethiopia, has been suffering from food shortages and famine conditions. Development organizations and governments have drawn on Malthusian narratives to explain the reasons why environments can no longer support their populations. The population of Konso, it is true, has grown a great deal in recent decades, but this work argues that problems have been experienced because the institutions that were key to the agriculture have been undermined by historical and political processes.

Landscape of Konso in the dry season
The landscape of Konso in the dry season. The view shows the terraces between Dokato and Buso villages.
Building terraces
Konso women (foreground) and men (background) working together to build terraces.

The way in which 'modernity' developed in this part of Ethiopia, was a result of the combination of the efforts of Marxist revolutionaries under the Derg regime (1974-1991) with those of Protestant Christian missionaries. Both targeted local cultural dignitaries as either exploitative landlords or dangerous 'devil worshippers'. The result of these and other processes is that the institutions that have organized communal labour in the past, and been responsible for the distribution of access to and use of resources have been undermined. Since the end of the Derg, many institutions which fell into disuse have started to function again. This work argues that state and development organizations that are interested in improving sustainable agricultural practices could engage more constructively with the institutional dimensions of land and labour management. Otherwise the Malthusian narratives which are being expounded (and which give no room for such institutional factors) will become self-fulfilling prophesies.

This work is based on fieldwork in Konso that goes back over ten years (thanks to the people of Konso), and is ongoing.

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