Antonietta IVONA, University of Bari, Italy
Geography must therefore be understood as a specific way of thinking, looking, representing, acting on the world. There is not so much an object or a series of objects with respect to which geography has a sort of privileged gaze or a unique and indisputable competence. Rather, there is a geographical perspective from which to interpret real world facts and processes. A discipline aware of the strength and the interpretative tools that have forged its tradition. The geographer's gaze is therefore fundamental given his ability to interpret reality both in its ongoing processes and for the effects produced in the present and for those that may occur in the future; this doesn’t mean that the geographical discipline has a predictive value but its intrinsic characteristic is that of associating interrelationships and interdependencies with real "facts" while providing, at the same time, an interpretation of effects and causes.
For what has been said so far, an emblematic case is that of Ethiopia where land grabbing and land use conflicts have been taking place for a long time, with consequent bitter social conflicts. In recent years, Ethiopia has launched a bold economic and social experiment by inviting the global garment industry to open manufacturing enterprises in the East African country. Lured by newly built industrial parks and a range of financial incentives, manufacturers of some of the world's best-known brands employ tens of thousands of Ethiopian workers in a nascent industry that will someday have billions of dollars in sales, according to the government.
The study tries to answer the following research questions: Are they self-determined development guidelines or consequences of new colonialisms of economic powers exogenous to the country? Finally, are the decisions of Ethiopian politicians generating attractive economic effects for the local population or, instead, repulsive with consequent phenomena of migration and social instability?
Mots clés : Interpretation|neo-colonialism| self-determination|development|stability
A103311AI