‘Mumps on top of a goiter’: the everyday experience of civil war in Ethiopia

What does war mean for people living in food-insecure and drought-prone peripheral areas of Ethiopia? This study explores a repertoire of everyday experiences of local people during the two-year war (2020–2022) in North Ethiopia. It draws on primary data collected from 22 participants across war-affected communities in Wag-Himra Zone of Ethiopia’s Amhara region, supplemented by secondary sources. The study argues that the war is ‘the continuation of violence by other means’ as it was preceded by the prevalence of persistent structural violence, demonstrated through food insecurity, frequent droughts, and inadequate infrastructures. Accordingly, the study departs from a monolithic and causal explanation of civil wars that has dominated scholarship over the years. Moreover, the study’s findings show how the war has expanded to everyday lives in terms of infrastructural aspects and the direct experience of the ordinary people, which includes attacks on civilians, sexual violence, forced displacement, and economic difficulties. In so doing, the study provides an empirically-grounded analysis of wartime dynamics and, thereby, contributes to the understanding of contemporary civil wars in Ethiopia and Africa at large.