Belonging Without Borders: Autochthony, Transitional Justice, and the Global Politics of Membership in Ethiopia

Peter Geschiere's comparative work on autochthony shows that claims of “who truly belongs” are not an African peculiarity but a recurring political grammar that surfaces wherever states tie rights, representation, and resources to identity. Ethnic indigeneity disputes in Central Africa, immigration and national-identity debates in Europe, and contests over historical belonging and territorial entitlement in Ethiopia are variations on the same structure: belonging becomes a resource precisely when the state makes it one. This article argues that Ethiopia's transitional justice process should resist treating disputes over belonging as exceptional or purely local. Framed instead as part of a global politics of membership and exclusion, these disputes call for a transitional justice architecture built on inclusive citizenship and equal rights, not on adjudicating competing claims of primordial ownership. The article develops this argument in three steps: it outlines autochthony as a global grammar of exclusion, situates Ethiopia's own belonging disputes within that grammar, and derives implications for the design of Ethiopia's transitional justice process.