Schlagwort-Archive: Ethiopian Studies

“All that nonsense that comes with a life insurance is not there” – Insurance associations in the Ethiopian diaspora in southern California

Sophia Thubauville

Update: The Online-Presentation on 29 June 2022, 18:00, will be postponed.

Abstract

Southern California has an Ethiopian diaspora population that goes back to the socialist revolution in Ethiopia in the early 1970s. Because of political and economic reasons, this population increased immensely around the turn of the millennium. With around 50,000 members, this is one of the largest diaspora communities in the US, the country that hosts with 500,000 the largest Ethiopian diaspora worldwide.

One of the central and most celebrated life rituals in Ethiopia, is the funeral service. For most members of the community it is important to hold this important celebration in the USA according to cultural norms or to repatriate the deceased to their home country. Both options are very expensive and require the help of others in implementation (be it in the preparation of Ethiopian food or knowledge of American export laws).

From the beginning of their settlement in southern California, Ethiopians organized their own insurance associations. At that early time they were few in numbers and in size, more informal and intimate. Around ten years ago, once many members of the population became more settled, many new insurance associations were established to give a culturally appropriate farewell to deceased members of the community. Apart from being more formalized, these new organizations are much larger and therefore more anonymous. In my presentation, I would like to trace the development of these informal associations and their adaption to their host society.

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Why old maps of Northeastern Africa are not old:
Cartographic collections as a repository of local territorial knowledge and practice

Wolbert G.C. Smidt

Online-Vortrag am 13. April 2022, 18:00 Uhr, Zoom

Old maps of Northeastern Africa have still to be re-discovered from an anthropological perspective. Especially maps dating from the 19th century contain a wealth of information on toponyms, regional names and the territorial extension of groups, local concepts of boundaries and of routes, overlaps of political claims, ethnic tensions and interactions, and even ecology and archaeology. However, they have almost not yet been subject of systematic studies. They are loved by collectioners, in some cases used as a rather anecdotal reference in academic works, while anthropology, especially ethnohistory, could still make much out of them, especially in combination with other sources on territorial traditions and local socio-political practices.

Old map Northern Ethiopia

This paper presents several examples from old maps from the 17th to 19th centuries, which show that they were not simply „external“ products of travelling cartographers and researchers, but rather results of an intense local support and communication with experienced local partners, who were specialists for territorial knowledge and socio-political practices. Despite simplifications and incompleteness, the „indigenous“ information stored on the maps is extremely rich and helps to understand political and cultural-territorial processes. In numerous cases the territorial realities we find on old maps are part of ongoing and unfinished processes until today and have effects on local identities and territorial self-definition. That is why the re-reading of old maps can be fruitful as an additional instrument to interpret modern political and political-cultural processes in a both highly dynamic, and highly conservative Northeastern Africa, whose regions, populations and cultures are marked by strong local identities.

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Panel for Junior Scholars at the ICES20 in Mekelle

WAKHVA will organize a panel during the 20th International Conference of Ethiopian Studies (ICES20) held at Mekelle University, from 1-5 October 2018.

During their phase of academic qualification junior scholars usually do not have sufficient opportunities to build up networks outside their affiliated institution and hardly get access to academic congresses to present their research results and expertise. Especially during the phase of work in progress external feedback and support on the project from peers and professionals as well as getting connected to other researchers is highly valuable. Thus, the German based Horn of Africa Research Association (WAKHVA) offers an organized workshop panel for PhD students with a regional focus on the Horn of Africa. Weiterlesen →