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Local Effects of Revolutionary Reform in a Tigray Village, Northern Ethiopia

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Local Effects of Revolutionary Reform in a Tigray Village, Northern Ethiopia "Now the People Are Like a Lord"- Local Effects of Revolutionary Reform in a Tigray Village, Northern Ethiopia Thesis submitted for the degree of Ph.D. by Barbara Hendrie Department of Anthropology University College London July 31, 1999 2 ABSTRACT The thesis examines aspects of social change in rural Tigray, northern Ethiopia. It is based on fieldwork conducted between February 1993 and February 1995 in two villages located on the south central highland plateau: Enda Mariyam, and Tegula. The majority of fieldwork was conducted in Enda Mariyam - a village of some 228 farming households - and spanned two complete agricultural years. The thesis considers the local implications of reform measures implemented by nationalist rebels - the Tigray People's Liberation Front - as part of a revolutionary agenda for the transformation of "traditional" Ethiopian peasant society. These measures included, most notably, land tenure reform, as well as changes in customary law and the re-organisation of rural administration. In addition, campaigns were mounted aimed at modifying certain aspects of peasant practice. In the context of a village-based ethnography, the thesis aims to qualify the most significant effects of these measures on social life and livelihoods. A key concern is how reform measures have affected the relationship between subsistence-oriented production, social organisation, and social stratification. In a setting where agricultural inputs - including land, oxen, and seed - are scarce, differential abilities amongst farming households to access agricultural inputs informs the pattern of social relationships. In this context, land reform is intimately linked to changes in the dynamics of wealth differentiation and social stratification in the village. The implications for the position of "big men" and cultural notions of status-honour are considered. Together with land reform, reform of customary law in the area of marriage and divorce has wrought subtle but important changes in marriage and divorce practices, and the nature of intra-household relationships. It is argued that public campaigns for the "emancipation" of women have probably had less effect on the ability of women to exert power within marriage, than the economic penalties that men now face upon divorce. Attempts to modify peasant religious practice are also examined, including efforts to minimise the number of holidays in the Ethiopian Orthodox calendar. The outcome of these attempts is explored in terms of notions of disaster and risk, the traditional authority of the Church, and the fragmentation of consensus around religious practice in the village. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1 - Introduction page 12 1. Background 12 2. A Look at the Literature on Agrarian Reform 17 3. Overview of Chapter Contents 28 4. The Setting and the Society 31 4.1 Tigray Region and People 32 4.2 The Village Setting: Enda Mariyam (and Tegula) 34 4.3 Aspects of Social Life 39 4.3.1 The Tigray Household 39 4.3.2 Wider Social Relations 44 4.3.3 The Individual and the Group 52 Chapter 2 - Historical Background 56 1. Introduction 56 2. The Social World of the Ancien Regime 60 2.1 The View from Above 60 2.2 The View from Below 62 3. Overview of Historical Events 65 3.1 The Imperial State in Crisis 65 3.2 The Advent of the Derg; the Formation of the TPLF 66 3.3 Warfare and Famine 69 3.4 Gaining Peasant Support 70 4. Revolutionary Reform 72 4.1 Aims of a Transformative Project 72 4.2 Land Reform 74 4.2.1 Implementing the Reform 76 4.2.2 The Derg and TPLF Land Reforms Compared 79 4.2.3 Land Reform in the Transitional Period 81 4.3 Rural Administration 82 4.3.1 The Bayto System 83 4.3.2 Reforming the Serit 84 5. Post-War Developments 86 Chapter 3 - Oxen, Land and Wealth 88 1. Introduction 88 2. Farming Practices in Enda Mariyam 89 2.1 Land and Crops 89 2.2 Agricultural Seasons and Activities 90 2.3 Livestock and Fodder 93 3. Coping with Deficits 94 3.1 Managing Household Grain Supply 95 3.2 Reducing Consumption 96 3.3 Loans 99 3.4 Wage-Labour 101 3.5 Sale of Livestock 102 4 Chapter 3 (continued) 4. Oxen and Wealth page 103 5. Obtaining Farm Capital 107 5.1 Oxen Hire - Siso, Gimit and Edag 107 5.2 Pairing - Lifinti 112 6. Land Rental - Mewfar 115 7. The Dynamics of Local Political Economies 119 7.1 Oxen and Land 119 7.2 Land and Gender 122 7.3 Gender and Oxen 124 8. Rich and Poor, Dependent and Independent 126 Chapter 4- Reform, Wealth and Status-Honour 128 1. Introduction 128 2. Levelling Effects of Land Reform 131 2.1 A Picture of the Past: Wealth Differences and the Position of Big Men 131 2.2 Closing the Gap Between Rich and Poor 137 2.3 Power, Wealth and Land in the Imperial Period 142 2.4 Disaggregating Land and Power After Reform 147 2.5 Land Rental and the Development of a Land Market 150 2.6 Implications of Levelling Down: The Disappearance of Big Men 154 3. Land Reform and Social Stratification 155 3.1 Social Ranking and Status-Honour 156 3.2 Searching for Kibri in the Present Day 159 3.3 New Configurations of Exchange and Dependence 160 3.4 Social Organisation and the Decline of Kibri 164 4. Perceptions of Change, Old and Young 166 Chapter 5- Marriage, Divorce and Separation 170 1. Introduction 170 2. Marriage, Cattle and Land 172 2.1 Marriage Prior to Reform 174 2.2 Marriage and Reform 180 2.3 Land, Cattle and Marriage Practices 183 3. Divorce 186 3.1 A Changing Frequency of Divorce? 191 3.2 Land, Houses and Divorce Practices 195 4. Separation and Intergeneration Relations 200 4.1 Prior to Reform 200 4.2 Changes in Separation Since Reform 204 4.3 Implications 208 5 Chapter 6 - Reform and Religious Practice page 211 1. Introduction 211 Normative Elements of Belief and Practice 213 2. Bending the Rules: Religious Practice and Agricultural Production 3. 218 4. The World of Practice During the Ancien Regime 220 5. Overview of Reform Measures 226 6. Implications of Reform 229 The Political Economy of Religious Practice 7. 232 Labour Versus God: A Competition of Discourses 8. 235 9. 'The Problem is in the Practice": Interpreting Disjuncture 240 Chapter 7- Conclusion 246 1. Introduction 246 2. Some Observations on the Effects of Revolutionary Reform 247 3. The Village, the State, and a Rural Development Project 259 4. Challenges for the Future 265 Bibliography 272 Appendix 1 - Methodology 280 Appendix 2 - Transliteration of Tigrinya Words 307 Appendix 3 - Glossary of Tigrinya Words 310 Appendix 4 - Local Measures and Conversions 331 Appendix 5 - The Ethiopian Calendar 333 Appendix 6 - Religious Holidays in Enda Mariyam 334 Appendix 7 - Translation of Tabiya Sent, Enda Mariyam 336 Appendix 8 - Frequency Analysis of Household Survey 344 6 LIST OF MAPS Wereda Boundaries of Tigray Region page 8 Dega Tembien Wereda 9 Enda Mariyam Kushet (Village) 10 A Household Compound 11 LIST OF TABLES Table 1: 106 Oxen distribution among surveyed households, Enda Mariyam and Tegula, 1993 Table 2: 108 Farming arrangements of oxenless households, Enda Mariyam and Tegula, 1993 Table 3: 109 Terms of payment for oxen hire, Enda Mariyam, 1993 Table 4: 113 Farming arrangements of single-ox households, Enda Mariyam and Tegula, 1993 Table 5: 114 Oxen inputs for 6 case-study households, Enda Mariyam, 1994/95 agricultural year Table 6: 115 Land area farmed for 6 case-study households, Enda Mariyam, 1994 Table 7: 119 Land rental and oxen ownership, Enda Mariyam and Tegula, 1993 Table 8: 122 Land rental and sex of household head, Enda Mariyam and Tegula, 1993 Table 9: 123 Cost per day of ploughing labour, Enda Mariyam, 1993 Table 10: 124 Sex of household head and oxen distribution, Enda Mariyam and Tegula, 1993 Table 11: 140 Comparison of oxen distribution between households in Hareyna and Enda Mariyam 7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My greatest debt is to the people of Enda Mariyam village, northern Ethiopia, and especially my adopted household and neighbours in Endabazbanom and Mahel Geza. According to their wishes, I have changed the names of all informants quoted in the thesis. I gratefully acknowledge their assistance and friendship, and wish them peace and prosperity for the future. Special thanks go my research assistant, Tebereh Germai, for her patience, professionalism, and good humour. Without the support of the Relief Society of Tigray (REST), the project would not have been possible. My supervisor, Professor Phil Burnham of the Department of Anthropology, University College London, has my warmest gratitude for his academic guidance and all-round moral support. I am also grateful to Ramon Sarro for his comradeship during the writing-up phase. The Radcliffe-Brown Trust Fund of the Royal Anthropological Institute, the Central Research Fund of the University of London, and the Graduate School of University College provided grants to assist the project. I also gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Save the Children Fund UK, OXFAM (UK), Norwegian People's Aid, and NOVIB, who together funded the fieldwork for this study. Special personal thanks go to my parents, Elaine and Joseph Hendrie, and my husband, Stephen Bloomfield, for their unwavering support. 8 Wereda Boundaries of Tigray Region 9 DegaTembien Wereda H A( KEA.)e-reL VAC9-3 1.40.e.komes1 To NW< Et_ C. 4.\ HAI 51-1L41-1 etvor) se-t-Fis s te 'It -- .00A HARI 4 A M IN:si-lET DeALF4 risi- L (Ni'\ \\ \ cODIR ktoelyfi . N To Atm RDI 0 'LL-_) \ Enda Mariyam Kushet (Village) tn1 A W E a.
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