The politics of large-scale land acquisitions in Ethiopia: state and corporate elites and subaltern villagers

This article explores the relationship between federal and regional state elites’ land authority and corporate elites, and how this intersects with the politics of subaltern villagers in the context of ongoing land acquisitions in Ethiopia. In the borderland region of Benishangul-Gumuz, the central state is concerned with the control of territory and people and cannot, it is argued, effectively devolve authority to the regional state. Competition over control of land resources is very much an intra-elite dynamic. The complexities that occur, fuelled by the politics of decentralisation, are played out in terms of contradictions in the land deal making, but are also reflected in land disputes and loss of local livelihoods.