ABSTRACT
Introduction The genesis of the modern Ethiopian state was largely based on the spatial control of territory and the expansion of the south-central kingdom of Shewa into newly conquered territories to its east, west, north and south.2 The inhabitants of these newly incorporated territories were subjected to the permeation of the emerging state culture. The varying degrees and patterns of this permeation eventually determined the relation between people and the state. Territorial control was a salient feature of the state making project in Ethiopia. Consistently, for the ideology of emancipation of the rural masses from central overrule, territory has played an important role. The formal ‘return of ownership’ over territories, previously conquered by the state, to the descendants of the formerly conquered people consequently became an important premise of the rearrangement of Ethiopia after the end of the civil war and the introduction of a federal system after 1991. The most acclaimed and most widely discussed result of this territorial arrangement is Article 39 (§4) of the Ethiopian constitution which grants the nations, nationalities and peoples3 of Ethiopia the “right to self-determination up to succession.”4 Federalism (de jure since 1994) was meant to redraw the map of Ethiopia along ethno-linguistic lines creating a quasi-(ethnic) federation. This was seen as the final answer to the National Question,5 the emancipation of the peoples of Ethiopia from former feudal overrule (c.1896-1974) as well as more immediate forms of national oppression during the socialist period (1974-91). The territorial reorganization of Ethiopia led to the demarcation of federal boundaries framing citizenship along ethnolinguistic criteria. This is derived from Article 39 (§2) of the Ethiopian constitution which states:
Every nationality in Ethiopia shall have the full right to administer itself. This right shall include the right to establish government institutions within the territory it inhabits and the right to fair representation in the federal and state governments.6
