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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Be like bees: the politics of mobilizing farmers for development in Tigray, Ethiopia
Author:Segers, KaatjeISNI
Year:2009
Periodical:African Affairs: The Journal of the Royal African Society
Volume:108
Issue:430
Pages:91-109
Language:English
Geographic term:Ethiopia
Subjects:rural development
local politics
Tigray People's Liberation Front
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/27667096
Abstract:Based on long-term ethnographic research, this article analyses the relations between local politics and farmers' participation in rural development in Tigray (Ethiopia). It takes an actor-oriented approach and focuses on local government officials and farmer representatives, who mediate between the government agencies that undertake rural development programmes and the farmers whom they address. To reach the target numbers of programme beneficiaries, these local development brokers 'mobilize' farmers to participate. They capitalize upon the historical legitimacy of the 1975-1991 revolution against the military Derg dictatorship in which the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), now heading the national government, and the Tigray rural population successfully joined forces. They revitalize farmers' collective memory of this alliance and reinvent the revolutionary grassroots institutions through which it was realized. The effects of this mobilization on participation in development are most evident among farmers who are members of the TPLF. A TPLF-development nexus arises, structuring local political career opportunities along the lines of development. The case study contributes to an empirical understanding of the entanglement of local politics and local development brokerage in rural African societies. Notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]
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