Therese Dokken travelled to Ethiopia in the summer of 2006 to interview village inhabitants on women’s property rights to land. She has received a prize for the year’s best master degree thesis for a thesis that is based on the information she gathered in Ethiopia.
Therese Dokken (28) completed the master study programme Development and Natural Resource Economics in spring 2007. During the last semester she wrote her master thesis ”Women’s land rights in Tigray, Ethiopia” that explores the extent that women in Tigray have equal rights with men to use and control land. This thesis was selected as the year’s best master degree thesis at the Department of Economics and Resource Management in 2007.
”An objective in Ethiopia has been to secure men and women equal rights, including rights to land. I wanted to see to what extent this has been successful. Land is important in this region, for social status and also because the household’s main income is from agriculture.”
Women participate in farming but are not permitted to do all types of work
Foto: Janet Chingono
The thesis was chosen from amongst several strong theses that were submitted in 2007. In addition to the evaluation of the thesis itself, the jury took into account that Therese collected the data under difficult conditions and that she gave a good presentation of the thesis. The overall evaluation of these factors won the prize for Therese.
Fieldwork in Ethiopia Each year, students on the study programme Development and Natural Resource Economics have the possibility of travelling to a developing country for fieldwork to collect data material for their master theses. Some of the students choose to participate in a larger, common fieldwork project where several students travel together and help each other with the collection of data. Therese participated in such a common fieldwork in the Tigray region in northern Ethiopia summer 2006.
Therese feels that she gained considerable academic advantages from her fieldwork. ”From my own experience, I would stress the benefits of being present when data is collected. You gain a better understanding of the data that is being collected and have a greater chance of getting what you really need. Furthermore, there is the advantage of having been in the area and seen the conditions people are living under, especially when you are writing on something so distant from your own daily life.”
Therese på feltarbeid.
Foto: Therese Dokken
Challenging experience It sounds both exotic and challenging for a young woman to travel to Ethiopia for research. Although at times it was difficult, on her return Therese has nearly only good things to say about her time in Ethiopia.
”We were mostly received very well and although I had a little extra attention because I came from Norway this was mainly positive curiosity.
The language barrier was the most challenging thing. Even though we had English speaking, local students who conducted the interviews for us, we still had to talk with the inhabitants in the villages we were in, either village administrators or curious children. To be dependent on translators all the time is tiring and also creates a greater distance. I learned some polite phrases in Tigrinya but these didn’t do more than provide a postive atmosphere that showed that at least I was making an effort.”
Students from UMB are well received in the Ethiopian village.
Foto: Therese Dokken
It was a great experience to participate in a large research project with many participants. ”When you live with the persons you are working with for two months you get to know them quite well and it is good to have someone to share your challenges with. The fieldwork was hard work. It was two months with little sleep, much work and little of the comforts you are used to. Nerves are naturally worn thin at times. Then it is good to have people around you to cheer you up and help with some of the work.”
Together in field; students from the MSc program in Development and Resource Economics. Fv: Andrew Simbwa, Joel Owani, Janet Chingono, Dan Yn Tong, James Kamukama og Therese Dokken
Foto: Therese Dokken
Theory and practice This master thesis was the last part of the master study programme in Development and Natural Resource Economics. The programme is a theoretically challenging study in economics whilst at the same time it provides practical applications of the theories.
”I learned an incredible amount during the two years. But the best part of the programme was being part of an international class. Different cultural and academic backgrounds contribute to wider viewpoints and better discussions.
To students who will be choosing a theme for their own master degree thesis, Therese says: ”Choose a theme that interests you. My own experience is that a master thesis is more theoretically challenging than you could possibly imagine when you first started on it. As your motivation goes up and down and you can’t see anything else than theory and method problems, it is important to have a theme that inspires you and helps to keep you motivated.”
Therese is currently working as a research assistant at CICERO Center for Climate Research. Here, she has use for much of the theory and methods she learned at UMB.
Young girls collect water for the household
Foto: Therese Dokken
Good grades don’t come by themselves Professor Stein Holden was supervisor for Therese’s master thesis and participated in parts of the fieldwork in Ethiopia. He stresses that good grades don’t come by themselves. They require considerable input all the time, good knowledge of theory and methods and a perfectionist attitude.
He supports Therese’s tips for choosing a master thesis. ”It is important to choose something you are interested in. It is also important to consider the practical aspects of the thesis. These include access to relevant data, supervisors and any possible extra resources that are needed. Extra resources can be external personnel and employers or the fellow students you are considering working with for the whole or part of the time.
”Choose your theme early and read up on it so that your ideas have time to mature. Otherwise, it is a question of level of ambition and how much work you are willing to put into the thesis.”
What separates a good thesis from a very good thesis? ”This can be many things. Many students have problems with finding a good red thread that runs through the thesis so that everything hangs together logically. Others can have weaknesses in their theory, methods or data and analysis. Not everyone manages to identify good hypotheses that can be tested or manage to test them successfully. Many students have a tendency to start too ambitiously and underestimate how long things take, and what is actually required. Thus, they don’t execute the thesis in a proper manner and the end product shows signs of this.”
Social taboos The information that Therese gathered in Ethiopia and the analysis of this shows that women in Tigray formally have the same rights to land as men. However, they do not have the same possibility of benefiting from the land and its resources.
”Women are seen as not suitable to farm land, even though they participate in the work, and this results in men being the decision makers. There are social taboos that hinder women in doing central tasks such as ploughing. This means that women who are divorced or are widows often have no alternative but to sharecrop out their land to men. This affects how much women can earn from the land they have rights to and also to the total income of the houshold as there are few other sources of income for women in rural areas. However, compared to the rest of Ethiopia, it would appear that women’s rights in Tigray are relatively strong.
Ploughing and other work on the land can only be done by men.
Foto: Janet Chingono
