A Blue Print or a Mirage : An Anthropological Study of agricultural and institutional practices, engagements and development discourse in Ethiopia

Sammanfattning: This thesis is an exploration of the institutional engagement between farmers and government, as well as a discourse about the development process in Ethiopia. The discussions are based on the fieldwork conducted from January 2012 to March 2012 in the eastern Ahmara region of the Dewa Chefa district (woreda). The ethnographic material will show how the public’s opinion is altered by the government and national media in terms of the discourse on development, economic growth and change of a farmer’s life. The discourses portray an unrealistic view of real, existing practices and engagements among the farmers and the agricultural bureau in the woreda. The main argument of the thesis is to show how the government's development discourses have multiple purposes that are not only attributed to the development practices and engagements, but also to the political realities and relations which exist between the government and the rural agricultural people. The thesis will explain how engagements, practices and discourses are strategized by the government and its institutions to assert power and to ensure farmers’ compliance. Also, it will explain the farmers' engagements and practices, and their strategies to deal with the development process and the government's strategies to assert power.   The theoretical framework is based on the deconstructive, or anthropological development critique. It will argue that understanding development as governmentality and discourses will be vital in discussing development as a power relationship and way of controlling others and extending government's power over its subjects. In such a view of development as nation state construction, the thesis will explain how development knowledge and discourse are reworked, reformulated and multiplied as new forms of knowledge and discourses to serve the purpose of the government in power within the nation.