THE CHANGING DIMENSIONS OF ETHNIC STRATIFICATION IN HAWASSA

Contemporary ethnic politics in Hawassa have their roots in the 19th century expansion of the Abyssinian empire. Prior to this, the area around Hawassa was occupied by the Sidama people, who had a high degree of interaction with their Oromo neighbours. Beginning in the mid-19th century, the core areas of the old Orthodox Christian Abyssinian empire were unified, and new territories in the south were conquered in order to form the modern Ethiopian state. Especially in what is now southern and western Ethiopia the local populations lost large amounts of their land, and were subjected to the often harsh rule of northerners (Donham Reference Donham, Donham and James1986; Bahru Reference Bahru2002). Led by Menelik II, the northerners who participated in the southern expansion were predominantly ethnically Amhara, but also included significant numbers of Tigreans, Oromo and GurageFootnote ⁴ (generally all Orthodox Christians). The fact that the formation of Ethiopia as a nation state coincided with the Amhara expansion into southern and western Ethiopia has meant that being Ethiopian has often been synonymous with being Amhara.

Lovise Aalen (Reference Aalen2011: 72–4) explains that divisions among the Sidama hindered resistance to the northern military conquest in the latter part of the 19th century. Indirect rule was imposed on the Sidama, and Sidama leaders maintained their power bases and gained administrative responsibilities within the national government. Sidama farmers were able to maintain control of much of their land, but they were forced to pay tribute to northern soldier-settlers. When the Italians invaded Ethiopia in 1936 the Sidama collaborated with them to overthrow the Amhara lords. After the Italians left in 1941, the Amhara retaliated in what the Sidama call the ‘second terror’ (the first terror was the initial Amhara invasion) (Aalen Reference Aalen2011: 75). This history of conflict and northern domination provides a backdrop for contemporary ethnic relations in urban Ethiopia.

Unlike many cities in southern Ethiopia, Hawassa was not initially established as a military garrison and it was not a major centre during the northern expansion. Hawassa was founded as an urban centre in the 1950s when Haile Selassie granted land to soldiers who had fought against the Italians (Zeleke and Serkalem Reference Zeleke and Alemayehu2007; Aalen Reference Aalen2011). The Sidama who had been using the land for a mix of small-scale farming and pastoralism were displaced by the new soldier/farmers. The first administrative office in Hawassa was established in 1966 (Zeleke and Serkalem Reference Zeleke and Alemayehu2007: 11). The following year the regional capital was transferred from Yirgalem to Hawassa, and the city emerged as an administrative centre for the region, but attracted little private investment and commerce. Instead, Shashamene, located at a regional crossroad around 20 kilometres to the north, was the business centre and the public sector was responsible for most of the employment opportunities in Hawassa.

With the emergence of a long-term residential population, class and status hierarchies in Hawassa developed in a similar manner to other cities in Southern and Western Ethiopia, like Jimma (Mains Reference Mains2004, Reference Mains2012) and Shashamene (Bjeren Reference Bjeren1985). Northern settlers, predominantly Amhara but also some Oromo, Gurage and Tigrean Orthodox Christians held most of the public sector positions. These settlers also owned many of the large businesses and the best farmland in the area. Marginalised ethnic minorities like the Wolayta, Kambata, Hadiya and others living near Hawassa in Southern Ethiopia took on jobs in the informal service sector. It was less common for Sidama to migrate to Hawassa, largely because the Sidama region produced coffee, which has long been Ethiopia's major cash crop, and the urban ethnic hierarchy was generally independent of the local Sidama population. Migrants to Hawassa worked as porters, domestic servants, waiters and day labourers. These jobs were low paid and highly stigmatised, creating a hierarchy in which class and occupational status mapped onto ethnicity. The hierarchy was reinforced and reproduced by differential access to education, as few non-Amhara had a chance to pursue the formal education that was necessary for accessing government employment.

With some important changes this dynamic continued under the Marxist ‘Derg’ dictatorship that ruled Ethiopia from 1974–1991. Land was nationalised under the Derg meaning that many powerful northerners lost much of their wealth, but for the most part ethnic-based hierarchies persisted. Northerners maintained control of the valuable government positions that were so important for Hawassa's economy. Under the Derg the government bureaucracy expanded, creating more opportunities for the educated to move to Hawassa from elsewhere in the country. As with the imperial era, many of the newly arriving government employees were Orthodox Christians from the north or other southern cities. However, Protestant and Catholic mission educated young people from Wolayta, Kambata and elsewhere gradually began moving to Hawassa and taking on government positions. Within Hawassa and other urban centres, opportunities for education for non-Amhara began to expand, creating the foundations for the educated class of southerners who have dominated local politics in recent years. Also under the Derg, factories producing cloth, flour and other goods were opened, and this increased the flow of neighbouring ethnic groups to Hawassa in search of work in the factories (Zeleke and Serkalem Reference Zeleke and Alemayehu2007).

By the time we began our research in 2013, the ethnic hierarchies in Hawassa had been dramatically transformed. In many ways, Hawassa had become a Sidama city. Hawassa's leaders were Sidama, its population was Sidama, and monuments highlighting Hawassa's Sidama roots began to appear. In the city's central piazza neighbourhood a large fountain was constructed, decorated with a mosaic of Sidama elders. The fountain was built in front of the spectacular Saint Gabriel Orthodox Christian Church. The Sidama are predominantly Protestant, and one Hawassa University professor explained that the placement of the fountain was a symbolic rejection of the Orthodox Christianity that is associated with northerners, particularly the Amhara. He complained that a great deal of time and money had been invested in the church and this expensive new fountain was insulting and disrespectful to Orthodox Christian families like his (University professor 2013, int.).

On the edge of town a monument to the former leader of the Sidama Liberation Movement,Footnote ⁵ Wolde Emmanuel Dubale, has been constructed. A statue of Wolde Emmanuel towers above a roundabout, near the intersection of a road connecting central Hawassa to the international Kenya–Ethiopia Highway. Interestingly, the fountain and the statue were constructed by a company owned by Wolde Emmanuel Dubale's son, an engineer who has received a number of lucrative government contracts to build roads and university buildings. In the case of the fountain, public funding came from the zonal level, and the statue was funded privately. Not far from the Wolde Emmuanuel Dubale monument, a new municipality building is also being constructed. When the construction is finished, the city government will shift from its location in the old city centre to what was once the urban periphery. Near Lake Hawassa a public field has been gated off and preserved for the annual Chembalala celebration that is associated with the Sidama new year. A white cement archway mimics the traditional wood structure that the people pass under during the celebration. Like the fountain, the sculpture was built with public funds, and space for the projects was allocated by the primarily Sidama city administration.

To understand how Hawassa became a Sidama city, it is necessary to return to the early 1990s and the introduction of policies of ethnic federalism. The politics of ethnicity in Ethiopia shifted significantly with the fall of the Derg government. In 1991 the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) drove the Marxist Derg regime from power, and implemented a system of ethnic federalism. The EPRDF is a coalition of ethnic and regional parties, but it has been dominated by the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF) since its inception, and has been strongly associated with the Tigray region. Tigray is located along Ethiopia's northern border with Eritrea and was Ethiopia's most culturally homogeneous province. After a long civil war with the central government during the Derg regime, ‘the TPLF saw itself as representing one of a diverse group of peoples who had been more or less arbitrarily incorporated into a single political unit’ (Clapham Reference Clapham, James, Donham, Kurimoto and Triulzi2002: 26). The EPRDF's decision to implement ethnic federalism was partially a result of this civil war and partially in recognition of Ethiopia's diversity. Today, Ethiopia is divided into 11 states – two cities and nine regions – based primarily on historic ethnic boundaries.Footnote ⁶ Regional states have a broad range of power covering education, economic development, health, police forces and legal courts. Regions may conduct government business and education in the language of their choice, and in theory they have the right to secede and form their own nation, although it seems unlikely that this would actually occur peacefully.

After the coming of the EPRDF, tension developed between the Sidama and the central government concerning the status of a Sidama regional state. Soon after the EPRDF came to power in 1991, a Sidama regional state was created, but this was incorporated into the multi-ethnic SNNPR in 1994. The SNNPR is the most diverse region in Ethiopia with 56 of the nation's approximately 80 ethnic groups (Data Reference Data2012). According to the most recent national census in 2007, the Sidama are the largest ethnic group in the SNNPR, but with a population of around 3 million at a national level they are still very much a minority in relation to larger groups like the Oromo (more than 25 million) and Amhara (around 20 million) (Ethiopian Central Statistical Agency 2010: 73). The shift from a Sidama region to a multi-ethnic region means that Amharic, rather than Sidama, is the language of governance and education in the area. It also meant the loss of jobs and federal funds that come with regional status. The loss of their own regional state has been a major grievance for the Sidama people. In 2002, 10–15 thousand Sidama marched on Hawassa. One of their key demands was that Sidama be granted regional status. The response of the federal government to the protestors was swift and violent. Police killed at least 25 protestors and their demands were not met (Human Rights Watch 2002; Aalen Reference Aalen2011: 151).

The 2005 national elections had important implications for urban Ethiopia. After coming to power in 1991, the EPRDF focused primarily on rural development. Attention to urban development began in 2002 and then increased rapidly after the 2005 parliamentary elections. For the first time, in 2005 opposition parties were given the chance to campaign freely. Opposition parties did very well in the elections, winning approximately one-third of Ethiopia's more than 500 parliament seats, primarily in urban areas. The opposition appealed to voters who were unhappy with high urban unemployment rates and a lack of development in cities (Di Nunzio Reference Di Nunzio2014). The results of the 2005 election led the EPRDF to focus its attention on urban development in hopes of winning back supporters.

The issue of regional status for the Sidama was raised again in the immediate aftermath of the election. Due to irregularities in the voting process, a revote was held for a selected number of parliament seats.Footnote ⁷ Lovise Aalen (Reference Aalen2011: 151–2) explains that in Hawassa EPRDF leaders promised Sidama elders that Sidama would be given regional status in exchange for supporting EPRDF party candidates. In every case the ruling EPRDF party candidates won after the revote. However, the federal government did not follow through on its promise to create a Sidama region, and this renewed tensions between the Sidama and the EPRDF.

After 2005 the EPRDF and its local Hawassa representatives were faced with the difficult task of bringing urban residents into the party and reconciling with the Sidama. Reconciling with the Sidama was so important because many Sidama were aligned with the opposition Sidama Liberation Movement (SLM) rather than the Sidama EPRDF affiliate party. The SLM has continually pushed the EPRDF for more benefits for Sidama people in exchange for its allegiance. Meles Zenawi, prime minister of Ethiopia at the time, personally came to Hawassa to address this issue. A number of important symbolic changes were made. Haile Mariam Desalegn,Footnote ⁸ a Wolayta,Footnote ⁹ resigned as president of the SNNPR and was replaced by a Sidama. Many non-Sidama bureau heads in Hawassa were replaced by Sidama. Awassa was renamed as Hawassa, reflecting the Sidama rather than the Amharic spelling of the word. Debub (Amharic for South) University was renamed Hawassa University, a move that both established a direct relationship between the university and Hawassa, and eliminated an Amharic word from the university's name. It was also at this time that the monuments to Sidama history, described above, were initiated.

Additional changes occurred that were aimed at changing the population dynamics of Hawassa. The former high-ranking member of the municipal government, quoted in the introduction, who is himself Sidama, explained to us that expanding urban infrastructure and distributing land were key parts of the government strategy to diffuse unrest among Sidama after the 2005 election. He noted that Sidama were given preferential access to government jobs and land in order to make up for past injustices that had marginalised them from the city centre (Former high ranking Hawassa city administrator 2013, int.). New plots of land on the edges of Hawassa were leased to Sidama people, and asphalt roads were built to connect these new neighbourhoods with the city centre. Hawassa also dramatically expanded its administrative boundaries to encompass the surrounding rural area. At the time of the 2007 census approximately 100,000 of Hawassa's 250,000 residents were living outside of the previous municipal boundaries. Almost all of these rural dwellers were Sidama, meaning that with the expansion in administrative boundaries, the Sidama were suddenly the most populous ethnic group in Hawassa.Footnote ¹⁰ The success of opposition parties in the 2005 election was partially based on the readiness of Ethiopia's multi-ethnic urban population to reject the EPRDF's policies of ethnic federalism. In a few short years after the 2005 election, Hawassa was transformed into a Sidama city that, in theory, was more likely to embrace the EPRDF and ethnic federalism.

In summary, in its brief history the symbolic ownership of Hawassa has shifted dramatically. During the imperial and Derg eras, both in terms of population size and political power, non-Sidama dominated Hawassa. Changes in this dynamic began after the regime change of 1991, and accelerated rapidly after 2005. Today, people of Sidama descent occupy nearly all of the upper level positions in the Hawassa city administration. Partially due to increased migration from the surrounding countryside and partially due to the expansion of Hawassa's administrative boundaries, Sidama now make up a clear majority of the urban population.

The transformation of Hawassa, the City of Nations and Nationalities, into a Sidama city is a result of the inherent tension between multi-ethnic cities and ethnic federalism. An ethnically diverse urban population does not have an easy fit with a state that governs on the basis of ethnicity. The EPRDF sought to alleviate this tension by making the Sidama the dominant ethnic group within Hawassa. In other words, Hawassa's status as a city filled with people of different nations and nationalities actually created tensions with the ruling EPRDF party, that the EPRDF then attempted to solve by increasing the power of a single ethnic group. This political history interacts with the boom in urban development and road construction that began in the early 2000s, and is part of the Ethiopian state's developmentalist approach to securing legitimacy through infrastructural development. The construction of new asphalt roads is one of the key ways in which the state intervenes in the lives of citizens. As we examine below, ethnic federalism shifts the location and experience of these interventions.

NEW ROADS AND CHANGING HIERARCHIES ON THE EDGE OF THE CITY

Most Hawassa residents experience the changing ethnic politics and hierarchies of Hawassa at a day-to-day level through the new roads that are being constructed at the edge of the city. New asphalt roads were intended to pull the city to the periphery and attract businesses and residents to new neighbourhoods. The development of gravel roads and electricity came first, then land for housing was leased, and finally asphalt roads were constructed in order to attract additional investment. Membo Road demonstrates this strategy for urban development. At the time when it was constructed, the neighbourhoods on the south side of the city were not densely populated. The lack of people living in the area meant that road construction was not slowed by the need to deal with pre-existing settlements. In fact, long-time residents of these neighbourhoods claimed that ‘there was nothing here but maize’ (Membo road resident 2013, int.). Membo Road connects the southwest periphery of Hawassa with a new market and the Ethiopia–Kenya Highway. The first section of the road, approximately half of its total length, was finished in 2008, while the second section was left unpaved until construction began again in 2013 and the asphalt was finished in early 2015. A portion of the newest asphalt is bordered by an informal settlement.

Residents that we spoke with were granted land along the road by the municipal government between 2006 and 2010. Most of these residents moved to Hawassa from the surrounding Sidama zone. For many, the difference between the past and the present was expressed in terms of dust. Before the asphalt, ‘there was nothing here but dust, now the streets are clean and free from dust’ (Membo road resident 2 2013, int.). As we discussed roads with Membo residents,Footnote ¹¹ complaints about the qualities of dust were common: Dust fills your eyes, nose, mouth and ears. Dust is inhaled and coughed back out. It covers trees and plants with a thick brown film. Dust makes people sick. It causes asthma and tuberculosis. Residents were quite clear that living with dust was not a pleasant experience. Other more practical aspects of the road were mentioned, like access to cheaper motorised transportation in the form of three-wheeled motorcycle taxis, but dust was continually noted as a key distinction between the past and the present. Because the experience of dust is so physical, it becomes an ideal tool for talking about change. The reduction in dust represents movement away from the past, towards a desirable future. By discursively connecting roads with the absence of dust, Hawassa residents demonstrate that roads are not only about movement, they represent modernity more broadly. To live near the asphalt is to live in a cleaner, healthier and more modern present. As an older woman in a different neighbourhood explained, ‘To see this asphalt road finished is a once in a lifetime experience, it gives me great satisfaction’ (Taddesse Enjore road resident 2015, int.).

The value of roads is often spoken of in terms of their qualitative association with modernity, but the economic dimensions of roads are equally important. Road construction consistently increases the value of property in the area. Property owners alongside the new asphalt estimated that they could receive up to one million birr if they sold their land (around $50,000 at the time). To get a sense of changes in property prices we spoke with a broker who helped Sidama sell land in the informal settlement near Membo Road (Real estate broker 2014, int.). In Ethiopia, the sale of land that has not been formally plotted by the state is illegal, but particularly in rapidly urbanising areas like Membo Road, it is quite common. The broker explained that buyers of land typically were not from the Hawassa area, and sellers generally used the money to invest in farmland elsewhere in the Sidama zone. The number of land transactions increased dramatically with the coming of the road. The broker told us that a 300 square metre plot in the informal settlement near Membo Road was selling for around 2000 birr in 2007, 6000 birr in 2011 and 60,000 birr at the time of our interview in 2014. He explained that 200 square metres with a good house on the soon-to-be asphalt road could easily sell for 1·2 million birr. Even considering that the birr lost more than half its value in relation to the dollar between 2008 and 2014, that is a very rapid increase in the value of land. In contrast to elsewhere in Hawassa, neighbourhood residents on the Membo Road described few disturbances from the road construction and no resettlement.

Membo Road's importance went beyond increasing the value of land that was leased to Sidama. More important was creating a physical connection between Hawassa and a dense cluster of Sidama people. The road pulls people to the city just as it pulls the city to the people. Particularly near the informal settlement, the Sidama character of the neighbourhood was clear. For example, at a small coffee shop where we sometimes spent time, the customers conversed primarily in Sidama, whereas Amharic was the language of choice in all of the coffee shops we frequented in the city centre. One of the neighbourhoods near Membo is called Kero, named for the common Sidama greeting. Sidama identity is closely linked with Protestantism, and one of the few non-Sidama that we spoke to near Membo explained that a shared religion and an attempt to learn the Sidama language allowed him to develop positive relationships with his neighbours (Membo road resident 3 2015, int.). Membo Road connected a peri-urban Sidama neighbourhood with the established Hawassa inner city.

The absence of dust, feelings of progress and increase in property values on Hawassa's periphery are manifestations of policies that seek to change the balance in ethnic relations of power. However, this does not mean that state policies have been neatly materialised within the new city. Although the case of Membo Road demonstrates that in some peripheral neighbourhoods Hawassa has been transformed into a Sidama city, this is not always the case. In other Hawassa neighbourhoods, new road construction demonstrates the continued importance of hierarchies of power associated with the imperial era. In the following sections we turn to these cases to argue that hierarchy has been built into the city in a way that defines the implications of new road construction.

THE PERSISTENCE OF OLD HIERARCHIES ON THE WOLDE EMMANUEL DUBALE ROAD

Non-Sidama residents of Hawassa sometimes lamented government favouritism (Hawassa resident 2 2013, int.; Hawassa resident 3 2014, int.). They argued that Membo road is typical of recent city development. In the Membo case not only were land leases given to Sidama, but a new road was built connecting their land to the city centre. Residents held up cases like this as clear examples of the flaws of ethnic federalism. They argued that ethnic federalism favours particular ethnic groups at the expense of those who came to the city from elsewhere. In Ethiopia's ethnically diverse cities, such favouritism creates division and conflict. However, this direct relationship between contemporary ethnic politics and urban development quickly breaks down as we examine additional case studies. In contrast to Membo Road, the benefits of Wolde Emmanuel Dubale Road (WED Road) appear to have been distributed according to an older politics of ethnicity, that is based in an earlier era, prior to the coming of the EPRDF, when migrants from the historical centre of power in northern Ethiopia, together with a few mission-educated southerners, dominated the local government.

The WED Road was completed in 2007 and in 2013 it was teeming with business activity. WED road was crowded with three-wheeled motorcycle taxis, motorbikes and large vehicles. The sidewalks were thick with pedestrians. The street was lined with shops selling everything from pizza to bicycle parts to imported clothing. There were few, if any, empty shop fronts. Almost no residences were visible from the sidewalk, but there were a few doors between shops that led to homes set back from the street.

We spoke to homeowners living on the end of WED Road closest to the city centre.Footnote ¹² Although we only interviewed five households, this was almost a complete sample of homeowners as most properties have been completely transformed for commercial use in the seven years since the road was constructed. The plots that are set back from the road, where a house would be located, have been developed into coffee houses, restaurants, storage or small courtyards surrounded by shops. All of the residents and business owners commented that the asphalt had beautified the neighbourhood and reduced the dust, but the economic implications of the road were the most important benefit. The road was no longer something to be observed and admired. The residents who stayed noted that they keep their compound gates shut and isolate themselves from the noise and traffic of the road. The asphalt had transformed the road into a marketplace, and those who remained sought to separate the street from their home, with gates, locks and fences. In contrast to Membo, there were no small groups of young men hanging out and socialising on the street, WED was primarily a place for buying, selling and transit.

The ethos of commerce appears to function independently of ethnicity, but at the time when the road was constructed, there was a notable absence of Sidama property owners in this neighbourhood.Footnote ¹³ All of the homeowners we spoke with had moved to Hawassa from elsewhere in the country, and most received land from the government in the early 1990s because they were public employees. They were teachers and low-level government administrators who maintained their positions during the transition from the Derg regime to the EPRDF. Land grants were made in the early 1990s, well before the Sidamacisation of the municipal government occurred after the 2005 election. At the time of our research, each of these properties was worth at least 1 million birr, most were probably in the 2–3 million birr range. All properties had shops that were rented to business operators for a total of 3000–6000 birr per month (to put this in perspective an assistant professor at Hawassa University earned around 4000 birr per month). Most of the previous residents had sold their property or rented it for commercial use and lived elsewhere. The benefits to those who were granted land are clear. For these individuals a combination of good luck and their association with the state brought them unprecedented economic gains. As government employees with steady incomes, they were well positioned to take advantage of the coming road and construct space for operating a business. With minimal investment they transformed government granted property into substantial wealth. It is difficult to determine the specific impact of the asphalt on property values, but property owners claimed they increased rent for shops in front of their house 200–300% immediately after the asphalt was finished, and those rents have continued to rise.

Business operators along WED Road confirmed a rapid increase in the price of rent, but claimed they had no plans to move elsewhere.Footnote ¹⁴ For example, an older man who operated a small shop, crowded with tools and spare parts for bicycles, claimed that his rent had increased from 300 birr to 3000 birr in the seven years since the road was completed. Over the noise of traffic outside his open door he explained, ‘It is good to see progress. It gets things moving. Before it was all residential here, but now it is all business. It is nice to see the change from dust to asphalt. It makes you feel good to see this kind of change. Rents are high but I'm not going anywhere. This is where the business is, and this is where I will stay’ (WED road business owner 2013, int.) Many of the business operators on WED road have moved from Addis Ababa and other smaller cities to take advantage of the excellent business climate in Hawassa.

Developments like WED Road provide an important model that other Hawassa residents observe. Regardless of the location, those living near newly constructed roads remarked that they plan to start a business and that the roads would create opportunities for business. The experience of the WED residents created a clear association between roads and economic growth, even for those living in far more peripheral areas of the city.

However, the experience of WED residents is not so easily generalisable. The success of the asphalt road in generating business opportunities for local residents is based in part on the previously peripheral nature of the neighbourhood and the socioeconomic status of the residents. The neighbourhood was not densely populated meaning that construction of the asphalt did not lead to displacement. Equally important, the livelihoods of the residents were not dependent on the particular spatial dynamics of the neighbourhood. Most of them commuted elsewhere for work, and therefore the road did not undermine their livelihood. Finally, as government workers, the residents had stable jobs and middle-class incomes. They owned their property and therefore could not be displaced by rising rents. Rather, they could afford to build shops and rent them for significant income. Alternatively, they could take advantage of rapidly rising land values, sell their home and use the profits to purchase homes elsewhere.

The WED road is a different story of disconnection and connection, pushing and pulling. In contrast to Membo, WED did not pull the city to the newly urbanised Sidama population. Instead WED brought commerce and economic opportunity to those who had established connections with the state during the previous regime. The WED landowners that we spoke with received land shortly after the fall of the Derg. They represent a transitional period between different political eras. In the early 1990s the Sidama did not yet dominate local politics and they were not well represented in government positions. Government employees from elsewhere in the country were able to benefit significantly from their connections to the state. Ten to 15 years after the initial land grants were made, the dirt roads were covered with asphalt and the lives of residents were transformed. The combination of new infrastructure and rapid economic growth meant that landowners were well positioned to be active in both the public and private sector, or leave their government jobs and earn incomes entirely from renting out shop space. The newly built asphalt pulled economic value into a space that was occupied by those who benefitted from the political hierarchies of the past.

OLD STRATIFICATION AND NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN THE CITY CENTRE

Ethiopians who moved to Hawassa during the imperial and Derg eras settled predominantly in the old city centre. Government employees were granted large tracts of land. We interviewed landowners living alongside a road in the central Piazza neighbourhood of Hawassa.Footnote ¹⁵ The road had been finished with cobblestone around 2008. Many of the landowners moved to Hawassa in the 1970s often because the family head was offered a government job. Over time, the families constructed hotels or restaurants on their property. For example, we spoke to a woman who moved with her family from Addis Ababa to her current residence in the Piazza, prior to the Marxist revolution, in the early 1970s (Central cobblestone road resident 2013, int.). Her family was granted a 680 square metre plot of land for a payment of 30 birr (around $15 at the time). The family built a hotel on the property in the late 1980s. She claimed that the construction of the cobblestone road improved business for the hotel. Prices for a room gradually went up from 3 birr/night when the hotel was built, to 50 birr/night in 2013, but it is unclear how much of this increase is directly due to the cobblestone. The woman was currently renting the hotel to a manager who paid 10,000 birr/month in exchange for all the hotel profits. The benefits received by northern migrants who were granted land and employed in the public sector may be contrasted with the situation faced by others who migrated to Hawassa during this time period, and settled in the city centre.

Upon moving to Hawassa, Wolayta, Kambata, Hadiya and other ethnic groups residing near Hawassa in Southern Ethiopia occasionally found positions in the public sector, but most worked as day labourers or domestic servants. Their status as workers in the private informal sector meant the state did not offer them grants of land. Instead they either rented from private owners (technically illegal during the Derg regime, but common in practice) or rented government owned ‘kebelle’ houses. Kebelle houses were nationalised from private owners in the early part of the Derg regime, and continue to be rented for nominal amounts of money (often 5–10 birr/month). Renters of both state and privately owned properties generally suffered from urban redevelopment and the construction of new roads.

We focused our research on the ‘Taddesse Enjore’ neighbourhood, named for an old hotel in the Piazza where a new asphalt road was under construction in 2013 and 2014. Construction of the new road and drainage system resulted in the destruction of a number of homes. Private renters and owners of homes that were not regulated by the state received no compensation for their loss. Residents of kebelle houses were given the option to resettle in housing on the edge of the city that had been built for those who had been displaced by urban development. These families descended from individuals who had moved to Hawassa during the late 1960s and early 1970s in search of work. Many were Wolayta but other ethnic groups were also represented. Household heads had a range of low paid work occupations like janitors and security guards at government offices, day labourers and petty traders.

Six families from the Taddesse Enjore neighbourhood were resettled in the Doro Arbata area (others from Taddesse Enjore were resettled elsewhere).Footnote ¹⁶ Doro Arbata takes its name from the poultry farm that it is located behind, on the southwest edge of the city, near the base of Alla Mura mountain, where there are no developed roads. When families from the Taddesse Enjore neighbourhood were resettled in Doro Arbata they found living conditions that were far below what they were accustomed to. In Doro Arbata no piped water was available, and water had to be purchased for 2 birr per jerry can. Initially there was no electricity. Eventually electricity was brought to the neighbourhood, but at the end of our fieldwork in May 2014 the power level was inadequate for the community, and only a few households had electric meters. Most households had only a single light bulb and there was often not enough power to illuminate even this bulb.Footnote ¹⁷

Resettled families emphasised that a lack of water and electricity were the biggest problems that they faced, but these were certainly not the only challenges they struggled with. Perhaps equally important was the economic and social disconnection from the city centre. In the Taddesse Enjore neighbourhood, livelihoods were heavily dependent on the cultural and economic dynamics of the inner city. Many residents made their living through small-scale trade, buying and selling small amounts of goods for a limited profit. Success in this field depends on close social relationships with one's community. Social relations provide access to cheap goods, and information regarding where and when these goods can be sold. The proximity to the market also means that residents do not need to pay for transportation in order to buy and sell their goods, and this protects their limited profit margin. As we spent time in the Taddesse Enjore neighbourhood we observed the sort of livelihoods that are possible in the city centre – women preparing two kilograms of unprocessed cotton for sale at the market, a woman collecting plastic bags that would later be sold, shops selling vegetables in quantities of less than ¼ kilogram. The distance from the market and lack of population density in Doro Arbata eliminated the trade and work opportunities that many resettled residents previously engaged in. This is particularly important for the women who head many of the households in Doro Arbata, and were particularly dependent on petty trade and selling products like homemade beer (tella) and bread (injera and ambesha).

For the resettled residents the disconnection from their neighbourhood idder was a particularly stressful experience. An idder is a funeral association and most urban Ethiopians are members of at least one idder. One older woman began to cry when she spoke about the lack of space for a funeral tent in the new Doro Arbata neighbourhood. Resettled residents continually came back to this point, noting that there is no space to mourn properly. All of the resettled residents we spoke with said they maintained their membership in their old neighbourhood idder. They did not see leaving their old idder as an option. One woman explained, ‘If I leave what will happen if I die tomorrow? Who will mourn for me? Will there only be 20 people at my funeral?’ (Doro Arbata resident 2013, int.). Resettled residents continued to use their limited time and resources to return to their old neighbourhood to participate in idder meetings and attend funerals. Some of the resettled residents explained that they were trying to form a new idder, but they did not yet have the significant core population that they needed.

The residents near the newly constructed Membo road used the absence of dust to discursively construct their relationship with the urban development. To no longer struggle to clean dust from one's eyes and nose was to experience progress and to live in a modern city. Those who were resettled in Doro Arbata were excluded from roads, the city and from temporal movement towards a desirable future. They spoke about hyenas and darkness. On the edge of town, without electricity, hyenas crowded into their neighbourhood every evening at sunset. The darkness and hyenas trapped people in their houses, unable to move between the city and their home after the darkness came. The resettled were not only denied the economic benefits of urban development, they were denied the city and the modern future that it offered.

We returned to Taddesse Enjore in 2015, after the asphalt was finished.Footnote ¹⁸ Some residents had taken advantage of the new asphalt to start small businesses, but many were fearful, not knowing what would happen to them next. They assumed that the asphalt would attract investors and they would be eventually resettled, perhaps even further from the city centre than Doro Arbata. The contrasting experiences of road construction and urban development for landowners and renters in the city centre demonstrates the interconnections between longstanding ethnic and class-based hierarchies and urban infrastructural development. The heavy state investment in urban roads is a recent development, but it directly impacts neighbourhoods and power hierarchies that have built up over time. Pre-existing inequalities have been built into the urban landscape. A new road not only interacts with the present, it engages with the past. In the context of ethnic federalism, Hawassa residents rarely discuss the historical hierarchy between northern settlers and marginalised ethnic minorities – certainly none of the displaced families mentioned this as a cause for their plight. In many cases the descendants of northerners who moved to Hawassa during the imperial and Derg eras are no longer employed in the public sector or directly connected with the state. However, their families often maintain ownership of land in the inner city and they are well positioned to benefit from new roads and development. Although migrants from neighbouring ethnic groups no longer face unequal access to education and blatant discrimination, as long-term renters in the city centre they are highly vulnerable to developments that cause physical, economic and symbolic displacement.