| Publication |
2011.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Ethiopia has been both enriched and burdened by its past, including its land tenure system. 'Land to the Tiller' was one of the main factors for the decline and fall of the imperial period, the reign of Emperor Haile-Sellase (1941-1974). This study is essentially based on archival materials from the Wolde-Mesqel Research Center at the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa University. I consulted material from the Center that deal with the subject of this article. The article examines the essential features and elements of land reform, land tenure and the qalad system (land measurement) in Ethiopia. It also tries to analyze the factors that made land measurement and land reform complex and difficult during Imperial Ethiopia. The findings suggest that most of the available literature on the government of Haile-Sellase's land tenure system lacks a sense of critical scholarship, and needs to be more comprehensive and balanced in its judgements and interpretations. It has no depth or objectivity and seems to have been written for political consumption. This article concludes by giving a comparative and contrastive analysis of some of the existing literature on land tenure, reform and measurement, using the archival materials of the Research Center.
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