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This paper theorizes the gendered consequences of refugee dispossession for social reproduction, focusing on Ethiopian refugees in Nairobi, Kenya. We analyze the Kenyan refugee regime as structured by colonial legacies of racialization and by neo-colonial global political economy strategies of managing 'surplus' populations. We demonstrate that refugees' ongoing experiences of interpersonal and structural violence constitutes an attack on their capacity for social reproduction and argue the 'feminization of refugee survival' is an important gendered consequence. We identify two transnational displacements that produce a new form of racialized enclosure and the alienation of refugees from the means of social reproduction. The first transnational displacement occurs due to their dispossession from support infrastructure for social reproduction in their origin country, and in the host country. A second, invisible but racialized transnational displacement is the refusal of global North countries to take on the anticipated welfare costs of refugee social reproduction. Transformative and re-generative approaches to refugee social reproduction would need to address both forms of displacement. The paper thus urges IPE scholarship to recognize that the crisis of refugee social reproduction is not only produced by global capitalist regimes, but also deeply structured by gendered, racialized, and colonial hierarchies of inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vulnerability and politics are among the relevant and key topics of discussion in the Ethiopian healthcare context. Attempts by the formal bioethics structure in Ethiopia to deliberate on ethical issues relating to vulnerability and politics in healthcare have been limited, even though the informal analysis of bioethical issues has been present in traditional Ethiopian communities. This is reflected in religion, social values, and local moral underpinnings. Thus, the aim of this paper is to discuss the bioethical implications of vulnerability and politics for healthcare in Ethiopia and to suggest possible ways forward. First, we will briefly introduce what has been done to develop bioethics as a field in Ethiopia and what gaps remain concerning its implementation in healthcare practice. This will give a context for our second and main task – analyzing the healthcare challenges in relation to vulnerability and politics and discussing their bioethical implications. In doing so, and since these two concepts are intrinsically broad, we demarcate their scope by focusing on specific issues such as poverty, gender, health governance, and armed conflicts. Lastly, we provide suggestions for the ways forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the post-Green Revolution era, numerous improved wheat varieties were released and disseminated to enhance tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses and increase productivity. Still, in the wheat-based farming systems of the Global South, gender-based and other social inequalities continue to undermine equitable access to improved varieties, especially for women, poor, and marginalized farmers. Here, we present a case for gender-sensitive technology development, dissemination, and evaluation as part of wheat varietal improvement programs. We take stock of the various challenges that persist in the uptake of modern wheat varieties by male and female smallholders. We focus on Ethiopia and India, two geographies with substantive wheat economies, widespread poverty, and gender inequalities. The socio-economic literature on wheat is relatively thin with limited and dated gender-sensitive evaluation studies on varietal technologies in these countries. Varietal technology evaluations could ideally cover gender differences in relation to wheat varietal trait preferences, technology adoption, and associated decision-making and labor-use changes related to new varieties and complementary technologies, as well as nutritional and economic benefits. The paper calls for a need to change the institutional arrangements in wheat research-and-development (R&D) programs to understand and pursue better paths for wheat improvement to proactively contribute toward gender equity and inclusivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) is promoted around the world to improve young people's sexual and reproductive health and rights, and to address gender-based violence. Teachers play crucial roles in enacting CSE, yet only few studies have placed them centrally to understand CSE re-contextualisation in schools. Hence, drawing on interviews, focus group discussions, and classroom observations with 56 participants, this paper presents how CSE teachers enact CSE policy and which factors affect their enactments at schools in Ethiopia. The paper highlights that while CSE teachers were typically conceptualised as 'facilitators' of the CSE initiative presented here, in practice teachers seemed to perform what might be understood as 'activist' roles within and beyond the classroom and school. Despite this activism, teachers' possibilities to address gender-based violence still seemed limited, in part due to lack of guidance from policy and programme designers, lack of support from community and school management, and socio-economic factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to analyze the status of women in household decision-making processes and their effects on dietary diversity in Ethiopia. The results indicate that men and women do not have equal decision-making authority within a household when it comes, particularly to decisions on food crop production, proportion of produced crop consumed at home and to be sold out in the market, and income generating activities. The results show variations in minimum dietary diversity for women across regions in Ethiopia. Therefore, more emphasis needed to empower women to improve their benefit from agricultural production and other income generating activities in Ethiopia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the impact of trade liberalization on local labour markets in Ethiopia, with a focus on the gender dimension of employment and on the process of structural transformation. By exploiting rich micro-level data on Ethiopian workers, we evaluate the effect of the Ethiopian trade reforms on the changes and composition of employment. We find that districts more exposed to trade liberalization experienced reductions in their employment levels, especially in female employment. We also show that reductions in tariffs trigger a process of sectoral reallocation from agriculture to services and that this process is particularly pronounced for women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past few years, international organisations have advanced Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) as a global policy to promote sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and address gender-based violence in schools. This paper analyses policy adoption, transfer mechanisms, and reformulation of CSE in Ethiopia, a late adopter of the policy. To do this, we identify education policy transfer mechanisms and apply a gender analysis by focusing on conceptualisations of gender relations in the uptake and reformulation of CSE policies. Drawing on document analysis and stakeholder interviews, the paper reveals that CSE in Ethiopia is largely a donor-driven agenda, advanced through dissemination and networking strategies. CSE is particularly embraced by the Ministry of Health, international organisations and NGOs in Ethiopia, but at the same time, the Ministry of Education and other critics continue to resist adoption, emphasising cultural differences. As a result, CSE in Ethiopia is (re)formulated and reflects narrow conceptualisations of how CSE can address gender-based violence, restricting its focus to health and development outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes market participation gaps among male, female, and joint decision-making households, and the factors influencing that gap, using data collected from 560 maize farm households in the Dawuro zone, southern Ethiopia. The results from the ordered probit analysis reveal that female and joint decision-making households were negatively associated with the probability of being a net seller, while being positively associated with being autarchic and net buyers. The decomposition results indicate clear market participation gaps in the net seller and net buyer positions between male and female decision-makers. The mean quantity gaps between males and females are more apparent in the net seller and net buyer positions. Between male and joint decision-makers, the mean quantity gaps are significant in the net seller and autarchic positions, while between female and joint decision-makers, it is significant in the net seller positions. In each market position, the quantity of gaps is unevenly distributed across the quantities of distribution, but the values increase as we approach higher levels of distribution. The gaps in the net seller and autarchic positions indicate that males are better positioned than females and that females are better positioned than joint decision-makers. Both endowment and return effects account for the quantity gaps. Thus, there is a need for policies to secure more equal access to productive resources for female and joint decision-making households and build their capacity to increase their resource returns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The African experience in works dealing with Sufi women shows a concentration of classical and more recent works in the Maghreb and in West Africa. There is an observable gap in academic writings on the Horn of Africa where only scarce and fragmentary studies are available on women's involvement and leadership in Sufism. Works focusing on Somalia address such themes as women's oral literature, religious practices, and everyday religion. The challenges Sufi women face in legitimizing their power, their experiences in a strong patriarchal society, the dominant discursive gendering strategy in defining religious orthodoxy, and the different mechanisms used by these women to establish and protect their religious power are marginalized themes in the region. Furthermore, by clearly showing the different coping mechanisms adopted by two religious figures and the different activities they lead as custodians of Sufi shrines, this paper stresses the need to go beyond the dominant academic discourse that overshadows the agency of women and instead magnify the passive status women have in the African sociopolitical landscape. This paper focuses on these themes and contributes to this gap through a comparative case study of two prominent Sufi figures from two different parts of the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia and Eritrea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Livestock is traditionally the central commodity for the Somali pastoralists of Ethiopia, a commodity that fulfils numerous purposes required to sustain livelihoods. Livestock commodification, however, is not limited to animal sales. Milk is a fundamental element of Somali life, used as a primary source of food for young animals and for human consumption. In the Somali Region, herders now sell milk, an act that was traditionally taboo, to supplement their income. Thus commodity individuation, processes that detach a thing from its traditional context and purpose and convert it into a commodity, has occurred. This paper deals with the recent phenomenon of commodification processes by identifying the degree of and reasons for milk individuation in the Somali Region of Ethiopia. The analysis shows the extent milk has been separated from its traditional context and addresses the cultural and economic impacts of milk individuation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary This paper examines the existence of social learning in agriculture in Ethiopia. To be specific, we use a “random matching within sample” technique to collect data on social networks and to elicit details of the relationships and information exchange between network members. We find that shared kinship or membership in certain groups, informal forms of mutual insurance, and having frequent meetings with network members are all associated with a higher probability of forming an information link with a network member. Furthermore, we find evidence for a statistically significant and positive relationship between networks and the adoption of row-planting as well as yields for both male and female networks. However, the evidence for an inverse U-shaped relationship of social learning, that is, between the number of adopters in the network and the adoption of row-planting, is strongest for female networks. Our results, thus, suggest that extension services and other programs that promote agricultural innovations and seek yield improvement can benefit from social networks but that their success depends on identifying the “right” networks, such as those of female household members in the case of row-planting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Evidence suggests adolescent self-esteem is influenced by beliefs of how individuals in their reference group perceive them. However, few studies examine how gender- and violence-related social norms affect self-esteem among refugee populations. This paper explores relationships between gender inequitable and victim-blaming social norms, personal attitudes, and self-esteem among adolescent girls participating in a life skills program in three Ethiopian refugee camps. Methods. Ordinary least squares multivariable regression analysis was used to assess the associations between attitudes and social norms, and self-esteem. Key independent variables of interest included a scale measuring personal attitudes toward gender inequitable norms, a measure of perceived injunctive norms capturing how a girl believed her family and community would react if she was raped, and a peer-group measure of collective descriptive norms surrounding gender inequity. The key outcome variable, self-esteem, was measured using the Rosenberg self-esteem scale. Results. Girl's personal attitudes toward gender inequitable norms were not significantly predictive of self-esteem at endline, when adjusting for other covariates. Collective peer norms surrounding the same gender inequitable statements were significantly predictive of self-esteem at endline (ß = -0.130; p = 0.024). Additionally, perceived injunctive norms surrounding family and community-based sanctions for victims of forced sex were associated with a decline in self-esteem at endline (ß = -0.103; p = 0.014). Significant findings for collective descriptive norms and injunctive norms remained when controlling for all three constructs simultaneously. Conclusions. Findings suggest shifting collective norms around gender inequity, particularly at the community and peer levels, may sustainably support the safety and well-being of adolescent girls in refugee settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the perspectives of caregivers and other adults on the nature and timing of childhood transitions, elicited through group discussions in five Ethiopian communities, as reflective of the community norms that shape childhood transitions. The paper uses data from Young Lives, a longitudinal study of children growing up in poverty, to investigate the transitions made by girls from childhood to the onset of puberty. It argues that these transitions are rarely linear, singular, or focused on 'learning', but instead multiple and often contradictory. While girls are said to be constrained by lack of opportunities, the main constraint to successful transitions in the communities discussed in the paper is having too many potentially contradictory opportunities, too soon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the central themes running through the collection of papers in this special issue of Childhood, which were all given as papers at the XVI Durban World Congress of Sociology, 23-29 July 2006. These themes encompass the ways in which global processes of social change combining modernity with tradition have become important for both the perception of childhood and for childrens real lives. They also include the ways in which those processes intertwined with social inequalities — of gender, generation and socioeconomic status — among children and between children and other age groups. The article goes on to provide an outline of the ways in which more general theoretical concerns in the sociology of childhood globally are related to local situations, to a variety of practical settings, to the conceptual concerns in different sociological fields and other social science disciplines in South Africa, Ethiopia, Taiwan, Germany, Sweden, and Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We investigate the demand supply side constraints of credit facing smallholders in developing countries using survey data and econometric models. • Against several past studies and policy discourse linking rural credit to suppl-side factors, we found that demand-side factors such as risk-aversion behavior are equally important. • Our results suggest that women are more likely to be credit constrained (from both the supply and demand sides) than men in both study countries. • We suggest on addressing both supply- and demand-side credit constraints, and gender-sensitive policies to improve women's access to credit. Credit constraint is often considered as one of the key barriers to the adoption of modern agricultural technologies and low agricultural productivity in low- and middle-income countries. Past research and much of the policy discourse associate agricultural credit constraints with supply-side factors, such as limited access to credit sources or high costs of borrowing. However, demand-side factors, such as risk-aversion and financial illiteracy among borrowers could also affect credit-rationing of smallholder agricultural households. This study investigates the nature of credit constraints, factors affecting credit constraint status, and the effects of credit constraints on adoption and intensity of use of three modern agricultural technologies – small-scale irrigation, chemical fertilizer, and improved seeds. The paper also assesses whether credit constraints are gender-differentiated. Primary survey data were collected from sample farmers in Ethiopia and Tanzania, and Tobit and two-step hurdle econometric models were used to analyze these data. Results show that demand-side credit constraints are as important as supply-side factors in conditioning smallholders' access to credit in both countries. We also find that credit is a binding constraint for the decision to adopt technologies and input use intensity in Tanzania but not statistically significant in Ethiopia. Results suggest that women are more likely to be credit constrained (from both the supply and demand sides) than men in both study countries. Based on these findings, we suggest that policies should focus on addressing both supply- and demand-side credit constraints to credit access, including through targeted interventions to reduce risk, such as crop insurance, and to strengthen the gender sensitivity of credit policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to investigate the attitude of Ethiopian teachers towards the teaching profession in secondary schools. We used a questionnaire to collect data from 404 teachers, the results of which indicate that 62.6% of the teachers had a moderate positive attitude towards their profession. The cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses had a positive correlation with each other. The findings also indicate that gender, age, qualifications, and teaching experience did not affect the attitude of teachers. We suggest further study to examine whether the teachers have a different attitude elsewhere and the impact of policy initiatives on teachers' attitudes towards their profession. • Ethiopian teachers show a moderate positive attitude towards the teaching profession. • Planned policy initiatives and piecemeal interventions can bring attitudinal change. • The three attitudinal responses have positive strong correlations. • The paper gives insight into the Ethiopian system of education. • The Ethiopian modern education is not contextualized with the realities of the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the non-prescription use of the sexual enhancement drug Viagra by young men in Addis Ababa. Data was collected through repeated in-depth interviews with 14 Viagra users – heterosexual men between the ages of 21 and 35 – and focus-group discussions with 21 male and 22 female university students. Study participants turned to Viagra to impress lovers, as a ‘support mechanism’ when feeling weak or tired, to counteract the effects of chewing the stimulant plantkhatand to satisfy what they perceived as a psychological ‘addiction’. More generally, young men used Viagra to quell anxieties about what they perceived as women’s growing expectations about their sexual performance – informed by changing gender relations and sexual expectations, constructions of masculinity that emphasise sexual prowess, and a misreading of women’s sexual desires largely fuelled by the emergence of pornography as a new standard for sexual performance. While some men gained sexual confidence by using Viagra, others – particularly those who used Viagra regularly – paradoxically experienced feelings of loss of manhood. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Learning is a fundamental human right, the basis of developing human capital and the foundation of human development. Basic skills provide individuals, their families and communities with the foundations needed to participate in society and to achieve better life chances. The shift in focus from mass access to mass learning has drawn attention to the question of who is and is not attaining these skills, and why. Opportunities to learn depend on access to schooling, but also the effectiveness of that schooling. There is considerable evidence of learning inequalities, both across and within countries. However, less is known about whether these patterns of inequality are rooted in variations in school effectiveness. In this paper we use evidence from Young Lives school surveys in Ethiopia, India and Vietnam to consider differences in girls' and boys' learning outcomes and progress and investigate how these patterns relate to school effectiveness. We explore whether girls or boys are 'sorted' into more or less effective schools and whether the same schools are differentially effective for boys and girls. Findings from India are perhaps closest to the 'typical' story that is often heard, in which girls, particularly those in rural areas, have lower attainment and attend less effective schools. In comparison, in Vietnam, girls have higher test scores and attend more effective schools on average, with this pattern driven by the higher performance of girls in rural areas. In Ethiopia, the divide between urban and rural areas is predominant in this context, over and above other areas of inequality including gender. Comparing results from these different areas of analysis and from three very different countries reveals the complexities of understanding how gender relates to educational outcomes. It demonstrates the importance of understanding gendered outcomes and school effectiveness in context. • Educational outcomes depend on access to education and the quality of that education. • Cross-country analysis reveals the complexities of how gender and school effectiveness relate to educational outcomes. • In India, where there is greatest school choice, girls have lower attainment and attend less effective schools than boys. • In Vietnam, the opposite is true - girls perform better and attend more effective schools. • In Ethiopia, the divide between urban and rural areas is predominant, over other axes of inequality including gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Ethnoarchaeological study of Konso beer and pottery production. • Archaeological study from two leather worker sites in Konso Ethiopia. • Overview of the ritual and economic importance of beer in Konso society. • Pottery analysis indicating beer fermentation based on the use-alteration attribute of pitting and erosion to the vessel's interior. The drinking of African Indigenous beers is an expression of a variety of identities from age, gender, status, ethnicity, and can serve to either bond or exclude people in a community. Beer has a deep history in Africa connecting the living with their ancestors, as well as motivating people to work as a form of reciprocity or economic payment. This study analyzes the intersection of beer and pottery using both archaeological and ethnoarchaeological analyses of pottery by examining the Konso society in southern Ethiopia. Beer production and consumption is essential as it is the agency that brings together different Konso lineages and serves as a daily food, reciprocal exchange, and a ritual libation. This paper uses previous ethnoarchaeological use-alteration analysis of household pottery assemblages as a baseline to compare to archaeological pottery assemblages from two Konso leather worker sites occupied over the last century. The archaeological pottery assemblages from these two Konso sites indicates that they were producing beer to increase their economic well being and drinking beer as part of their daily food. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper provides empirical evidence on the gendered impact of the 2007–2008 food price crisis using panel data on 1400 households from rural Ethiopia that were initially surveyed before the onset of the crisis, in 1994–1995, 1997, and 2004, and after food prices spiked, in 2009. It investigates whether female-headed households are more likely to report experiencing a food price shock, and whether female-headed households experiencing a shock are more (or less) likely to adopt certain coping strategies, controlling for individual, household, and community characteristics. Our findings suggest that female-headed households are more vulnerable to food price changes and are more likely to have experienced a food price shock in 2007–2008. Because female-headed households are also resource poor and have a larger food gap compared with male-headed households, they cope by cutting back on the number of meals they provide their households during good months and eating less preferred foods in general. A combination of short-term measures to protect diet diversity and micronutrient consumption of vulnerable groups and longer-term measures to promote investment in sustainable agriculture, such as strengthening women’s property rights, may increase the ability of poor and vulnerable households to cope better with food price increases. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: This paper examines how women’s perception of the division of household assets upon divorce affects women’s well-being and child schooling outcomes in rural Ethiopia. Findings suggest that women who perceive that their husband would get all the assets in case of a divorce also tend to perceive less control over their lives. Implications of perceptions of unequal divorce allocations on child schooling are more striking: not only do children in households where perceived divorce allocations favor the husband do worse compared to children of the same age, but girls fare even worse than boys in these households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘Third World’ poverty and hunger conjures up certain conventionalised images: thin children, with or without their mothers. This paper explores the genealogy of such images in the mid-twentieth century, and shows how they mobilise ideologies of ‘rescue’ while pointing away from structural (political, military and economic) explanations for poverty, famine and other disasters. These images had a counterpart in practices of transnational and transracial adoption, which became the subject of debate in the USA during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, and were at least as much about symbolic debates over race as the fate of particular children. Together, these visual and familial practices made US foreign and domestic poverty policy intelligible as a debate over whether to save women and children. When they cast the USA as rescuer, they made it all but impossible to understand what US political, military or economic power had to do with creating the problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This paper examines the findings from recent studies of street children in Ethiopia. Methods: Following a discussion of the term "street children," comparisons are drawn between Latin American and Ethiopian street children in terms of gender, age, reasons for going to the streets, family relations and structure, delinquency, drug use, groups and the outcomes of street life. In particular, the victimization of street children in Ethiopia is examined. Results: Widespread abuse of street children was reported. More than half of the street boys questioned reported being "regularly" physically attacked. Street life is also highly victimogenic for street girls. Sexual offences, in particular, were widespread. Forty four percent had been raped and a further 26% had been sexually attacked. Conclusions: Similarities between Latin American street children and their Ethiopian counterparts regarding gender, background and street life experiences are noted. Comparisons concerning the victimization of street children were not possible, as this is an issue that is relatively unexamined in the Latin American context. Also, issues such as the developmental outcomes of street life and the process of leaving street life remain to be examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the Ethiopian government has introduced reforms to promote gender equality in land rights, including legislative changes and a land registration programme that requires the names of both husbands and wives on certificates. This paper examines implementation of these reforms through a case-based approach that links national policy processes to analysis of two village-level case studies, based on fieldwork conducted in 2009-10. In both cases, government initiatives do appear to have enhanced women's land rights to a certain degree. However, the causal process involved is considerably more complex than the direct link between titling and women's land rights that is assumed in much of the existing literature. The cases suggest that government initiatives are contingent upon state-society relations, and that change to informal institutions and power relations within society can constitute an important complement to land registration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]