Learning from South Omo: New research on agro-pastoralist communities in Southern Ethiopia

The people of the South Omo Zone, a lowland area close to the borders with Kenya and South Sudan, have faced rapid and unprecedented development in recent decades. Customary livelihoods – based on combinations of animal herding, small-scale agriculture and shifting cultivation – are being undermined by land-grabbing for sugar plantations, national parks and hydro-electric projects. Tourists flock to this remote region to visit the indigenous inhabitants, but these encounters can reproduce stereotypes of exotic and unchanging tribes. Climate change further upsets the delicate ecology of the region.

Within dominant narratives of modernisation, the people of South Omo are seen as the final remnants of a disappearing world. Yet, far from lacking agency or knowledge, the people of South Omo present alternative narratives about their aspirations for development and worries for the future. The richness in expertise derives from their daily experience of their localities but also deep reflection on how it is changing.

From 2018, SOAS scholars Emma Crewe, Richard Axelby and Hannah Bennett have partnered with the University of Addis Ababa and the South Omo Theatre Company to promote marginalised voices in South Omo on a series of projects - Performing for Peace (funded by AHRC, 2021-23), Mursi Encountering Other (AHRC 2023-26) and Agro-Pastoralists Educate Others (ISPF 2024-25). The results include a play – Tiranya ko Koisani – performed at the National Theatre in Addis Ababa in July 2022, an exhibition held at the Gabre Kristos Debra Centre in summer 2025 and the SOAS Gallery in August 2025, and more than fifty research projects devised and led by researchers from the Arbore, Banna, Bodi, Dasenech, Mursi, Nyangatom and Hamer communities. For more about these projects visit our Learning from South Omo website.

Images

1. Nyangatom cattle market, Bethel Kebede
2. Mursi filming-making, Ben Young