Women’s Agency and the Men in the Shadow: Complexities of Women’s Land Inheritance Rights amid Structural Conflicts in Oromia Region, Ethiopia

Abstract

Land possession is not only vital for livelihood but also serves as symbol of social status, clan affiliation and succession among the Oromo. However, access to land, for both men and women, are now governed by two competing realms of ‘law’ in Oromia National Regional States (hereafter Oromia). On one hand, customary laws and norms still govern access to land including through land inheritance. On the other hand, people use (and sometimes misuse) state ‘laws’ to claim and inherit land in a manner contrary to the custom. This paper, based on case studies from different parts of Oromia, examines: (1) how women (making use of state-based laws) are actively seeking to inherit land from their parents in view of the increasing economic/livelihood values of land, (2) how women’s attempts to claim and inherit land from their family of origin is complicated by such structural factors as clan exogamy and settlement rules, and (3) how men are covertly attempting to gain access to land outside their clan territory through the overt agency of women.