GDI Lecture: Contending nationalisms in Ethiopia: New contours of Amhara politics
| Dates: | 6 March 2024 |
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| Times: | 16:30 - 18:00 |
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| What is it: | Lecture |
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| Organiser: | Global Development Institute |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, External researchers, Adults, Alumni, Current University students, General public |
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| Speaker: | Dereje Feyissa Dori |
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Ethiopia is one of the few countries in Africa where the idea of the nation state was implemented in the European sense of the term; expressed in the form of cultural homogenization and political centralisation. This nation state project has succeeded to the extent that it has produced a national Ethiopian identity for some. However, the political legitimacy of this project has been deeply contested since the 1960s student movement, out of which have emerged ethnonational movements advancing an ‘internal colonialism’ thesis. This contention has set the stage for confrontation between Pan-Ethiopian and ethnonational projects. The latter, spearheaded by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), took power in 1991 and reconfigured the state in the form of ethnic federalism, granting unprecedented constitutional right for ethnic groups for self-determination, including secession. This move is justified as a form of political settlement necessary to guarantee the survival of the Ethiopian state while ensuring extensive political and cultural rights to ethnic groups. However, Ethiopia’s ethno-federal political settlement proved to be partial, as the entire edifice is built on an anti-Amhara sentiment, the ethnic group which is construed as the ‘oppressing nationality’. This has made the Amhara vulnerable to ethnically targeted attacks and extensive property right violations in areas outside the Amhara regional state. This process has set the stage for the emergence of a reactive Amhara nationalism in the context of political reform since 2018, uneasily blending legitimate protection demands with imperial nostalgia. This contribution critically appraises the contours of the new Amhara identity politics and its implications for the survival of the Ethiopian state.
Dereje Feyissa Dori holds a doctorate in social anthropology from Martin-Luther University in Halle, Germany. He was a Research Fellow at Osaka University in Japan; the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, and Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung, both in Germany. Dereje has worked as a research professor at the International Law and Policy Institute (ILPI) and was attached to ILPI’s Centre for African Studies in Oslo as the Africa Research Director. He also served as the Senior Research Advisor to the Life and Peace Institute (LPI), Horn of Africa and Ethiopia Programs. Dereje has taught in several universities, including, Haramaya (formerly named, Alemaya), and Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. Others include, Martin Luther and Bayreuth Universities in Germany and Osaka University in Japan. He was also an APN (African Peacebuilding Network) Individual Grant Recipient in 2016. Dereje is currently an adjunct Associate Professor focusing on the PhD program at the Centre for Federal and Governance Studies, Addis Ababa University. He is also a Co-Investigator for the Ethiopia-South Africa Migration Corridor as part of the UK-based Migration for Development and Equality (MIDEQ) South-South Migration Research Hub. Besides. Dereje is a member of the Advisory Board of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) and Addis Ababa University.
Dereje has published extensively on a wide range of topics from ethnicity, ethnic federalism and conflict; borders and borderlands; gender; religion and politics; pastoralism; the political economy of development, to migration and transnationalism. He is the author and co-editor of several books, including, Borders and Borderlands as Resources in the Horn of Africa (London: James Currey, 2010), Playing different games: the paradox of the identification strategies of the Anuak and Nuer in the Gambella region of Ethiopia (New York and London: Berghahn Books, 2011), and, Ethiopia in the Wake of Political Reform (Los Angeles: Tsehai Publishers, 2020). He has also authored over fifteen articles in peer-reviewed journals and over thirty chapters for edited volumes. Dereje has also consulted for international organizations such as the World Bank; UNDP, DFID, UNICEF, and EU-TF/REF.
Speaker
Dereje Feyissa Dori
Organisation: Addis Ababa University
Travel and Contact Information
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Lecture Theatre D
Simon Building
Manchester
