The Ethiopian government continuously calls for policy-relevant research. However, this admission of policy challenges and attempts to fill the gap cannot ignore the political economy and power dynamics in Ethiopia. This article discusses challenges to an impactful partnership with government, drawing from the experiences of the 'conflict working group', the ESRC-DFID-funded project 'Shifting In/equality Dynamics in Ethiopia: from Research to Application' (SIDERA). We argue that research should empower communities; however, to government, research is a tool to buttress efforts to 'secure' and 'pacify' the lowlands to eventually facilitate extraction. The article also addresses the lack of consensus on basic concepts such as conflict. We argue that it is a rational response to environmental change and state-led dispossessions, while to government, it is an expression of 'backwardness' and 'irrationality'. The development of a meaningful partnership in this context was dependent on navigating meanings and power relations.

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SUMMARY On 2 November 2022, welcome news came from Pretoria, South Africa. After 10 days of negotiations, the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) signed a Cessation of Hostilities Agreement. This piece situates the importance of the war, and more importantly the agreement, within the longue durée of Ethiopian politics and highlights its importance as a turning point marking the end of the era of the dominance of the TPLF and the beginning of the end of ethno-nationalism's hegemonic centrality to national politics, including at the expense of the Ethiopian state.

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