7 - Land Tenure and the Land-Clan Connection

Summary

The chapter continues the investigation of land and land tenure to better understand the spatial and material dimensions of belonging – essential for the construction of peoplehood. It demonstrates that the introduction of a new land-tenure system in Bale had lasting consequences for what is called the land-clan connection, affecting people’s experiences in their landscapes and their notions of home. The chapter’s first part discusses the Arsi Oromo notions of land and their arrangement of land rights and use in pre-conquest Bale. Special attention is given to land as communal property, to how the land-clan connection secured access to land, and to its significance for emplaced belonging. The second part of the chapter details the impacts changes in the land-tenure system had on these “traditional” perceptions and arrangements – paying attention to processes of privatization and commodification of land. The main argument is that the ensuing changes led to increased privatization and commodification of land, individualism, and a more stratified society, inevitably affecting the land-clan connection. The chapter thus demonstrates the inadequacy of a mechanistic and one-dimensional class perspective and points to the relevance of ethnicity and religion as integral parts of a robust materalist interpretation of land.