This Article critically analyzes the law and the practice on women’s right to and control over rural land in Ethiopia. The study employed doctrinal legal research and empirical quantitative methods to collect and analyse data collected from primary and secondary sources. Tools such as law review and analysis, interviewer-assisted survey questionnaire, key informant interviews and focus group discussions were used in the process of data collection. It has been found that the existing laws adequately recognize a woman’s right to equality with respect to access to and control of property (including land) in Ethiopia. However, harmful customary practices and stereotypes against women are still prevalent in the Wolaita community, which hinders an effective implementation of the legal rights of women to possess and control land. It is suggested that legal awareness education and effective legal aid should be made available for women to empower them to claim their property rights in general and a right to rural land use and administration in particular.
In addition to international conferences on Ethiopian studies, specific congresses dedicated to art have occurred since 1986. They were organized first at the instigation of the historian Richard Pankhurst, founder of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies (IES) at Addis Ababa University, and Stanislaw Chojnacki, keeper of the IES Museum until the revolution, who were both prolific writers on Ethiopian art and history. First focusing on Christian art, the proceedings of these conferences addressed very specific points and do not provide any general overviews. They show, however, a field of study and how this field is pragmatically defined. If these conferences have not always gathered every art historian who is a specialist on Ethiopia, they do give good insights into scholars interested in the field at least at one point in their careers, and thus provide a list of scholars to follow.
