Ownership, Nativism, and Conflict: the Case of the 2020 Violence in Shashemene

The killing of the Oromo singer Hachalu Hundessa in 2020 sparked a wave of violence across the southern Rift Valley. Shashemene was particularly hit hard, leaving an unknown number of people killed, thousands temporarily displaced, and numerous private houses and businesses destroyed. Identity-based communal violence is hardly a new phenomenon in Ethiopia but there are, we believe, some emerging new dynamics that need to be analysed. This article argues that an entrenched primordialist discourse around ethnic identity, which has also served as the basis for Ethiopia's ethnic federalism, has produced specific spatial, nativist narratives, determining perceptions of inclusion and exclusion. We moreover argue that Abiy Ahmed's ambiguous rhetoric concerning the future of ethnic federalism and a perceived alliance with the Amhara created anxiety among the Oromo who feared that this would erode their control and ownership of the Oromia regional state. We believe that this perceived alliance affected the vertical antagonistic perceptions of the state and contributed to legitimizing horizontal inter-communal violence directed at civilians, seen as ushering in the policies levied against the Oromo. Lastly, we argue that religious differences, relevant for the southeastern parts of the country, exacerbated tensions and played an important, yet subtle role during the violence.