This chapter describes responses to the ecological crisis and political changes in Ethiopia in the early 1990s among the Suri, an agropastoral group in K„fa Region, southern Ethiopia. Data are... Show moreThis chapter describes responses to the ecological crisis and political changes in Ethiopia in the early 1990s among the Suri, an agropastoral group in K„fa Region, southern Ethiopia. Data are derived from fieldwork carried out in the area after the change of regime in 1991. Attention is paid to environmental conditions and the Suri subsistence system, relations between the Suri and neighbouring ethnic groups, drought and famine in the area, in particular in the 1980s, and the Suri attitude towards the interventions of outside agencies, interethnic conflict in the period 1984-1993, Suri recovery and adaptation in the early 1990s, and the effects of drought, famine, and political upheaval on Suri socioeconomic organization, local political relations, and ethnic identities and interethnic relations. Bibliogr., notes, ref Show less
This paper examines the transformation of violence in Ethiopian society, chiefly in the context of processes of 'modernization' and political change since the turn of the century, but focusing on... Show moreThis paper examines the transformation of violence in Ethiopian society, chiefly in the context of processes of 'modernization' and political change since the turn of the century, but focusing on the most recent period (1970s-1980s). Forms and practices of violence varied in the different periods of modern Ethiopian history. The author distinguishes roughly four periods where a change of political regime initiated a different sort of performance of violence, viz. the period of expansion under Minelik II (d. 1913) and the Yasu-Zewditu era (1889-1930), the Italian intermezzo (1935-1941), the post-War Haile Selassie period (1941-1974), and the 'revolutionary' period (1974-1991). The present 'transitional' period is only marginally discussed. The most important period was that of the revolution. It can be argued that a radical break with the past occurred under the regime of the 'Dergue', the military council ruling Ethiopia after 1974. The breaking point was the period of the 'Red Terror' in the years 1976-1978. It was a period of intense physical and psychological violence which became rooted in society and had a lasting effect on the collective mind and on social relations among Ethiopians. Bibliogr., notes, ref Show less
