"The Master Plan is a Master Killer”: Land Dispossession and Resistance in Oromia, Ethiopia

Land is a key resource and an epicenter of struggle in Ethiopia, as indicated by the incident that sparked a powerful protest in Oromia in 2015. The protest quickly galvanized against the Addis Ababa Master Plan, which government officials represented as a “development plan,” while the protesters counter-framed it as a “Master Killer,” highlighting the immanent risks of land dispossession and displacement of people. This article employs a political-ecological approach to examine environmental, socio-cultural, and political-economic implications of the Master Plan and the resistance against it as a signifi er of wider issues of contestation connected to land and displacement. It highlights contemporary grievances of the Oromo people in relation to unresolved historical questions and outlines the responses of the government to the protest. Keywords: Addis Ababa Master Plan, displacement, domination, #OromoProtests, political ecology, violence