Sustaining Life amid Growing Uncertainties: Hamer Womens' Engagement in Land Management

Abstract

The Omo Valley in southwestern part of Ethiopia has not seen modern human development infrastructures for decades and the Hamer women must endure all forms of marginalization as a result. Hamer women as women and vulnerable groups have continued to suffer from the uncertainties from the consequences of poor development interventions, impacts from the changing climate and rangeland degradation. The consequence of such uncertain processes in turn increased the frequency of droughts, made rainfall patterns irregular. The growing human and livestock population requiring more land for grazing and cultivation, mobility for this started to trigger more conflicts. Women, in response to changing weather conditions, gradually started strategic management of the rangelands for grazing, cultivation, and diversification of livelihoods as coping strategies. The purpose of this article is to examine Hamer women's role in land management in response to climate induced uncertainties. The data was collected using ethnographic techniques and analyzed qualitatively employing thematic analysis. It was found out that women engagement in land management was to diversify and maximize land use as an alternative to mobility. Apart from the generation of income from the sale of grasses, enclosures contributed to pastoral production systems despite claims that it fragmented communal rangelands.