By Fiona Flintan

‘Change’ in pastoral areas and societies is occurring at an unprecedented pace. Pastoral women and men experience such change in different ways, and have different capacities to transform it into positive and/or negative impacts. Many women in particular, are having to make difficult decisions about whether and how they should embrace new opportunities that may benefit them as individuals, but are likely to damage the very roots of their cultural identity and existence. How can such contradictions of ‘development’ and ‘progress’ be mitigated? What development pathway should they take? Should they fight for their rights as women, as pastoralists, or is it possible and more beneficial to do both? Are there opportunities for them to define what they want as pastoralist women? Views and perspectives from four different regions of Ethiopia have been captured by research carried out over the last six years using tools such as life histories and participatory video. The results highlight what individual women from Afar, Borana, Somalia, Karrayyu, and Mursi think about ‘change’ and the dilemmas and questions they face.