The Addis Ababa Integrated Master Plan and the Oromo Claims to Finfinnee in Ethiopia

Abstract

In the burgeoning literature on land rights, relatively little attention is offered to urban land grabs and indigenous peoples’ territorial claims. Certainly, the current Addis Ababa master plan and the envisaged land grabs represent both continuity in and change from previous historical episodes of territorialisation. The new master plan is not only a niche where ‘civilization mission’ meets ‘wilderness’ or indigenous peoples are also arenas wherein hegemonies and sovereignties of the earlier period have been challenged by new authority and territorialisation. This article investigates the ethnography of indigenous people-state relations animated by notions of cultural and ethnic difference, legal tradition, power, and history. Framing indigenous peoples land rights in the context of a multidimensional understanding of rights, this analysis focuses on the necessity of protecting the territorial rights of indigenous peoples. From this perspective, this article contributes new knowledge of historical narratives, land claims and current debates around minority rights.