Effects of Displacement caused by Light Train in Addis Ababa: The case of Piassa
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Date
2015-07
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Development and its induced impacts have been affecting millions of people all over the world for many decades. Even though much has been written and documented about this issue, research regarding development is not abundant focusing on the third world. This is highly attributed to the fact that development, especially urban development, being a recent phenomenon for the continent of Africa and third world countries like Ethiopia. This particular study explores the effects of the recent Light Rail Transit Network Project in Addis Ababa and its effects on the capital‟s people from various sections emphasizing on the socio-economic aspects of daily life. In this paper high emphasis is given to displaced people with a detail analysis of their daily lives in their relocation site.
This research follows a qualitative approach. The major data collecting techniques employed were interview, observation and informal conversation. In addition the theoretical model used in this paper is Michael Cernea‟s Impoverishment risks, risk management and reconstruction: A model of population displacement and resettlement. Since the aim of the research is presenting the perceptions of informants regarding various issues, several cases of personal accounts are also presented in the analysis. This study describes the pros and cons of the Project in relation to the wider context of the project and the process of the relocation of people displaced from Piassa to Yeka Tafo#2 Condominium site. Though the original intention of the project was assessing both the pros and cons of the project in a balanced manner, the thesis heavily concentrates on describing changes on the lives of informants since finding positive aspects of the project were found to be very little during the field work in comparison with the adverse ones.
This study attempts to understand how lives of people look like after displacement. In addition, this study is also interested in understanding the various things that these people gained or lost after they started living in the relocation site. Furthermore, the other area of interest of this study, to some extent, is to understand the changes in people‟s businesses particularly found around Megenagna. The personal accounts of employees in construction sites are also included alongside an account of a woman who managed to generate her own business in the construction site
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Social Anthropology