Over the past few years (1985-1991), the Suri of the far southwest of Ethiopia have lived through a deep ecological and social crisis without substantial external aid from either the Ethiopian... Show moreOver the past few years (1985-1991), the Suri of the far southwest of Ethiopia have lived through a deep ecological and social crisis without substantial external aid from either the Ethiopian government or international aid agencies. They have experienced drought, cattle disease and an increasing level of violent conflict with their southern neighbours, the Nyangatom, leading to severe disruption of their traditional agropastoral subsistence system and settlement pattern. Through migration, the exploitation of gold resources and investment in automatic weapons, however, they have virtually managed a full recovery of their economy and society Show less
This paper describes the burial ceremony of the Surma-speaking Me'en of southwest Ethiopia as a collective ritual pervaded by cattle symbolism. The author discerns four basic elements in the... Show moreThis paper describes the burial ceremony of the Surma-speaking Me'en of southwest Ethiopia as a collective ritual pervaded by cattle symbolism. The author discerns four basic elements in the ritual: cattle are the prime ritual medium because they are the epitome of Me'en sociocultural ideals and social personhood; the fertility and well-being of the family and wider lineage groups is a dominant concern underlying a proper performance of the burial; communication with and appeasement of the lineage spirit as well as the 'soul' of the deceased is indispensable to avert misfortune for the descendants; acting out and reaffirming the underlying social, ritual and economic links with the family's affines is an implicit motive of the burial ceremony. In this sense, one might see the burial ritual in terms of a socially motivated strategy to avert strain between individuals and groups. The study is based on fieldwork carried out in the K„fa region in 1989-1990. Bibliogr., notes, sum. in French and Italian Show less
There is, as yet, still no adequate theoretical idiom to conceptualize, in an accepted, conventional manner, the processes conditioning ethnic naming and the political-economic embeddedness of... Show moreThere is, as yet, still no adequate theoretical idiom to conceptualize, in an accepted, conventional manner, the processes conditioning ethnic naming and the political-economic embeddedness of cultural complexities. The traditional primordial-mobilization dichotomy in ethnic studies, with its heuristic and descriptive advantages, remains attractive. Nonetheless, it would be advantageous for future anthropological studies of ethnic groups and relations to focus on the processes of infrastructural political-ecological conditioning of ethnic labels and their symbolic use. An explanation in terms of the psychological, affective validity of ethnicity is at most a derivative of such a process and has more to do with the individual experience rather than the collective aspects of ethnicity. The case of Maji 'awraja' (subprovince) in southwestern Ethiopia, where the author conducted fieldwork in 1988-1990, serves as illustration. The ethnonyms in use here primarily reflect a history of politico-ecological conflict between various groups of different composition and not a smooth transfer of cultural heritages within well-defined "tribes", despite a popular local image to the contrary. State discourse and policy plays a crucial role in the process. The discussion is restricted to four groups: the Dizi, the Tishana-Me'en, the Surma (or Tirma) and the Northerners (or "Amhara"). Bibliogr., notes, ref Show less
This article has two purposes: 1) to provide a first historical outline of the Tishana or Me'en, a small 'tribal' group living in southwestern Ethiopia, and 2) to illustrate the importance of a... Show moreThis article has two purposes: 1) to provide a first historical outline of the Tishana or Me'en, a small 'tribal' group living in southwestern Ethiopia, and 2) to illustrate the importance of a political economy approach for the explanation of such a process. Inspiration has been derived from the historical anthropological approach of E. Wolf (1982), which postulates the interdependence of political economic factors on the one hand, and social dynamics and cultural factors on the other. The vast majority of Me'en speakers now live in highland areas west of the Omo. However, some of the people who currently speak Me'en were pastoralists who lived in the lowlands bordering the southwestern Ethiopian highlands. The problem explained here is how and why a portion of these Me'en pastoralists left the lowlands and how they successfully adapted to highland areas where cattle keeping was notoriously difficult and where the invading northerners tried to prevent them from settling. A further issue is how they were able to absorb other groups and individuals from different ethnic origins. The author argues that the very expansion of the Me'en out of the Omo Valley into the highlands - that is the reshaping of their social reproductive system in a new ecoeconomic niche - was fuelled by Me'en ideology itself, and that this ideology was activated by the confrontation of the Me'en with the expanding frontier of the Abyssinian State. Their cultural ideology, bound up with cattle, entered into the adaptation process of the Me'en groups in a period of crisis. Bibliogr., notes, ref Show less
This study is a contribution to the analysis of the interplay of myth, legend, history and identity of the Beta Esra'el or Falasha of Ethiopia from a historical-anthropological perspective. The... Show moreThis study is a contribution to the analysis of the interplay of myth, legend, history and identity of the Beta Esra'el or Falasha of Ethiopia from a historical-anthropological perspective. The focus is on the issue of their ethnogenesis, or origin history, and its mythical reflection in the ideological domain. All known variations or genres of the stories presented by the Beta Esra'el to a variety of travellers, researchers and other visitors are presented, in conjunction with the relevant historical knowledge available to date. The theoretical question guiding this effort is how one might arrive at some historically plausible conclusions on the basis of a critical reflection on mythical traditions. The starting point is that Beta Esra'el stories can only be seen in their proper perspective when related ideologically to the mythical tradition of the Amhara-Tigray, who were for a long time the two politically and culturally dominant groups in the region, especially during the time of the centralizing 'Solomonic' empire (c. 1270-1975). The kind of myths considered consist of a kind of 'sacred narratives', which the author calls 'mytho-legends'. The initial hypothesis is that the Amhara-Tigray mytho-legends and the Beta Esra'el mytho-legends on their own origin and religious tradition form part of one domain of discourse. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in French (p. 539) Show less
Comprehensive overview of publications on Ethiopia published between c. 1957 up to 1990. The 5433 entries are arranged according to the following broad subject areas: Bibliographies - History of... Show moreComprehensive overview of publications on Ethiopia published between c. 1957 up to 1990. The 5433 entries are arranged according to the following broad subject areas: Bibliographies - History of Ethiopianist studies - Studies on manuscripts, documents, archives and library resources - Travellers and foreigners - History - Cultural geography and demography - Politics and law before 1974 - Politics, law and revolutionary development after 1974 - Peasantry and the rural sector before 1974 - Peasantry and the rural sector after 1974 - The urban sector - Modernization, communications, industry and economic development - Social structure and social change - Drought and famine; refugees and resettlement - International relations - Ethnoregional conflicts - Education - Health and health care - Ethnomedicine, traditional healing, disease history - Folklore, magic, oral traditions - Music - Material culture, architecture, arts and crafts - Christian and hagiographical literature - Religion and missions - Ethnography and ethnology. An author index is included Show less
Ondanks een hongersnood van zeer dramatische omvang, interne politieke onrust, aanhoudende burgeroorlog en economische problemen lijkt het door militairen geleide bewind in Ethiopië stevig in het... Show moreOndanks een hongersnood van zeer dramatische omvang, interne politieke onrust, aanhoudende burgeroorlog en economische problemen lijkt het door militairen geleide bewind in Ethiopië stevig in het zadel te blijven zitten en de 'revolutie van bovenaf' voortgang te maken. Wat zijn hierbij op langere termijn de perspectieven voor de Ethiopische staatkundige eenheid en sociaal-economische ontwikkeling, en wat is de positie van het land in internationaal opzicht? Deze vragen worden in het verlengde van elkaar beantwoord in de volgende delen: huidige politieke structuur - spanning tussen nationale regering en etnische en regionale bewegingen - Ethiopië en de regio - de internationale positie van Ethiopië. Show less
Reviews briefly the role of population growth in economic growth theory and makes a few critical remarks on the applied methodology and the underlying assumptions. Emphasis is laid on the possible... Show moreReviews briefly the role of population growth in economic growth theory and makes a few critical remarks on the applied methodology and the underlying assumptions. Emphasis is laid on the possible relationships between population and economic growth in the developing countries, but also Malthus' theory and the stagnationists' of the 1930's is discussed in order to acquire a better understanding of the development in this field. Sections: The claasical economists - The Stagnationists - The Leibenstein/Nelson thesis - The Coale and Hoover study - Myrdal's criticism - The neo-Malthusian approach - Kuznets' criticism of the New Malthusian approach - Boserup's approach - Type of development (Cameroun; Algeria; Ethiopia; Zambia). Notes, table Show less
