Reconfiguring Property Rights and Customary Resource Governance among the Borana Pastoralists of Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

This paper examines the changing nature of property rights, resource access and governance among the Borana Oromo pastoralist society of southern Ethiopia. Drawing on qualitative data collected from 56 key informants' interviews, 68 people taking part in eight focus group discussions, observations carried out in four pastoral districts and literature review, the paper analyzed the evolving nature of the transformation of customary resource access and governance institutions among the Borana Oromo pastoralists. The findings were assessed and interpreted using insights from political ecology, legal pluralism, and Ribot & Peluso's theory of access which together elucidated why and how the factors of environmental change, state policies, institutional pluralism and power relations have shaped property relations, resource access and customary governance among the Borana pastoralists. Results indicated that communal lands increasingly becoming fragmented and converted to private holding. This trend is driven by various factors, including climate change; elite-driven land commodification; state policies that encourage sedentary agriculture, ignore environmental limitations in the drylands, and overlook the socio-cultural basis of pastoral livelihood systems; and an underestimation of the drylands' potential to support pastoralism and other production systems. Consequently, customary institutions, including Abbaa Dheedaa and Abbaa Heregaa institutions, were gradually becoming undermined in land and water resource governance. Despite these changes, some pastoral society have adopted agro pastoralism as an adaptive response to climate stress, while the pastoral elders continue to reinterpret indigenous norms to sustain elements of collective resource governance. In this way, the study contributes to the literature on pastoral governance by demonstrating that the transformation of property rights in Borana represents not merely a shift from communal to private tenure but a dynamic process of institutional hybridity in which customary institutions, state governance, and market forces continuously reconfigure resource access and governance. This paper argues for a hybrid approach to pastoral natural resource governance that strengthens communal land rights, supports pastoral mobility, and recognizes the continued relevance of customary institutions in promoting sustainable resource management and pastoral resilience.