Gumuz And Highland Resettlers

This study, based on many years of field research, attempts to reveal the complex socio-cultural, economic, and environmental changes brought about by the state-sponsored resettlement scheme, Pawe, in the northwestern lowlands of Ethiopia. The autochthonous inhabitants of the area, the Nilo-Saharan-speaking Gumuz and practicing shifting cultivation, were confronted with a massive influx of about 80,000 relocated plough cultivators from various drought- and famine-stricken highland parts of the country. From the contradictory strategies of livelihood and resource management of these two groups serious conflicts evolved which have so far not yet been overcome. Wolde-Selassie Abbute teaches at the University of Gttingen, Germany.