Beyond restitution? Gender-just remedies for displacement and dispossession in Sudan and Ethiopia

This thesis examines the mainstream approaches to women’s housing, land and property rights in the context of internal displacement and dispossession. The research adopted feminist methodological framework and case study approach to explore these issues in Darfur, Sudan and the Somali-Oromia regions of Ethiopia. Furthermore, the research was undertaken in a dual role as a practitioner-researcher.

This study makes several original contributions. Using feminist theories and methods, the study developed a different perspective regarding remedies for forced displacement and HLP losses, a perspective which takes gender harms as a starting point. This approach problematised harms and drew attention to their multifaceted nature, specifically social, political and economic inequalities that affect women’s vulnerability to become victims of violence. By adopting intersectionality as a critical feminist lens, the research drew attention to variety of conflict-related experiences, nuanced account of relations of power on the ground, and multiple manifestations of agency.

Finally, the study drew attention to displacement and HLP losses, the most common features of modern conflicts but ones that are considered natural and inevitable consequences of war for which there are limited remedies. HLP is an essential concept in the context of conflictinduced displacement and remedies that can be used as a platform to transform ideas about femininity and masculinity that perpetuate harms and gender inequality. By pointing out the multidimensional character of HLP, not only as an economic asset but a source of social status, cultural identity, representation and political power, the study highlights similarly multifaceted nature of harm and the ways in which economic disadvantage and cultural disrespect are entwined and support one another and the ways this relationship influences access to economic resources, such as HLP and political power.