Gumuz and Highland Resettlers

This study based on many years of field research tries to reveal the complex socio-cultural, economic and environmental changes brought about by the state-sponsored resettlement scheme Pawe in the north-western lowlands of Ethiopia. The autochthonous inhabitants of the area, the Nilo-Saharan-speaking Gumuz, 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.