Ethiopia

Fighting Terror Through Justice: Implementing the IGAD Framework for Legal Cooperation Against Terrorism

by Matthew Schwartz

Co-authored with the Task Force on Legal Cooperation against Terrorism in the IGAD Subregion.

East Africa and the Horn face a number of transnational security threats, including terrorism, transnational crime,... more East Africa and the Horn face a number of transnational security threats, including terrorism, transnational crime, and piracy. In recent years, particularly following the July 2010 attacks in Kampala, al-Shabaab has been increasingly viewed as a threat not only to Somalia, but to the greater subregion. Tourism has declined and shipping costs have risen due to the threat of piracy from Somalia. Lawless pockets where government reach is weak, together with rampant corruption, have turned the region into a major transit point for black market financial flows and various forms of illicit trafficking.

Terrorism and transnational crime increasingly threaten security in the subregion of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development [IGAD]. Because of their transnational nature, no individual IGAD member state will single-handedly be able to deal effectively with these threats. As the IGAD Security Strategy adopted in December 2010 makes clear, effective cooperation will be crucial to winning the struggle against terrorism and to ensuring that other forms of transnational crime do not similarly jeopardize the IGAD subregion’s growth, prosperity, and stability.

Recherches historiques et archéologiques à Meshalä Maryam (Mänz, Ethiopie)

by Bertrand Poissonnier

Co-authored with Bertrand Hirsch, published in Annales d'Ethiopie 2000

A very large site of original settlement structures was excavated at the supposed location of the king Bä Edä Maryam... more A very large site of original settlement structures was excavated at the supposed location of the king Bä Edä Maryam (1468-1478) camp, near the Meshälä Maryam church, founded in the XVth century. A corbelled-roofed tumulus revealed an important deposit that can be ascribed to the 1st millenium AD. Many tumuli, and maybe even some passage graves (dolmens) with stelae, have been found in the surroundings.

Colours in Archaeology (in Ethiopia)

by Bertrand Poissonnier

published in S. Uhlig (ed.) 'Encyclopaedia Ethiopica, 1. Wiesbaden, 2003: 781.

Čabbe

by Bertrand Poissonnier

published in S. Uhlig (ed.) 'Encyclopaedia Ethiopica', 1. Wiesbaden, 2003: 660.

Famous Rock Art Site in Ethiopia Famous Rock Art Site in Ethiopia

Broderick, L.G., 2012. Ritualisation (or The Four Fully-Articulated Ungulates of The Apocalypse). In Pluskowski, A. ed. The Ritual Killing and Burial of Animals: European Perspectives. Oxford: Oxbow Books. pp. 22-32

by Lee Broderick

Etudes de terrain à Tuto Fela (Ethiopie)

by Bertrand Poissonnier

co-authored with J.-P. Cros, B. Poisblaud & R. Joussaume, published in R. Joussaume (ed.) 'Tuto Fela et les stèles du sud de l'Ethiopie', 2007, éd. Recherche sur les Civilisations.

Šumgädäl : peintures rupestres et histoires de vaches dans le Sud-Gondär

by Bertrand Poissonnier

co-authored with Anaïs Wion, published in 'Annales d'Ethiopie' 25, 2010.

Šumgädäl : rock paintings and cow stories in South-Gondär. The discovery of a series of rock paintings showing... more Šumgädäl : rock paintings and cow stories in South-Gondär. The discovery of a series of rock paintings showing schematic bucrania from a cave from the upper Blue Nile Valley, likely belonging to historical times, is studied alongside with local legends involving bovines.
Keywords: Ethiopia, Bägemder, Rock Art, Bovids, Comb Style, Oral Tradition.

American Sign Language video comprehension testing in the Ethiopian Deaf community

by Linda Jordan

Co-authored with Jillian Netzley. Published online as part of SIL's Electronic Survey Reports (SILESR) series.

The main purpose of this research was to determine whether the Deaf of Ethiopia could understand and use literature... more The main purpose of this research was to determine whether the Deaf of Ethiopia could understand and use literature videotaped in American Sign Language (ASL), which is related to Ethiopian Sign Language (ESL). This was investigated by means of a Video Recorded Text Test (VRTT) using both translated scripture and original literature in ASL. The results show quite low comprehension of the videotaped material by Ethiopian test subjects. Further research will be needed to investigate dialect differences among signers of ESL.

Virtual enclaves or global networks? The role of Information and Communication Technologies in development cooperation

by Iginio Gagliardone

This article investigates the evolution of the struggle for bridging the digital divide in developing countries.... more This article investigates the evolution of the struggle for bridging the digital divide in developing countries. Taking into account tendencies that have been registered in disciplines other than development, such as urban sociology and social psychology, the author demonstrates how a frequent over-estimation of the potential of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has influenced the previsions about their impacts and led to results and phenomena different from the expected ones. ICTs have been perceived more as a black box that can produce the same effects everywhere, independent from pre-existing cultural and socio-economic contexts, than as an open artifact, capable of integrating local needs in their functioning mechanism and being adapted according to different conditions of use.

Catching up from early nutritional deficits? Evidence from rural Ethiopia

by Catherine Porter

Co-authored with Ingo Outes. Accepted at Journal of Economics and Human Biology.

We examine the nutritional status of a cohort of poor Ethiopian children and their patterns of catch-up growth in... more We examine the nutritional status of a cohort of poor Ethiopian children and their patterns of catch-up growth in height-for-age between three key development stages: age one, five and eight. We use ordinary least squares (within community) and instrumental variables analysis. During the earliest period, we find that nutritional catch-up patterns vary substantially across socioeconomic groups: average catch-up growth in height-for-age is almost perfect among children in relatively better-off households, while among the poorer children, relative height is more persistent. Between five and eight years of age, however, we find near-perfect persistence and no evidence of heterogeneity in catch-up growth. Our findings suggest that household wealth, and in particular access to services, can lead to substantial catch-up growth early on in life. However, for our sample, the window of opportunity to catch up appears to close as early as the age of five.

How the Ethiopian Changed His Skin

by Daniel Selden

Forthcoming, "Classical Antiquity"
Comments, corrections, or suggestions for revision still welcome.

Digital Media, Conflict and Diasporas in the Horn of Africa

by Iginio Gagliardone

Co-authored with Nicole Stremlau

The Horn of Africa is one of the least connected regions in the world. Nevertheless, digital media play an important... more The Horn of Africa is one of the least connected regions in the world. Nevertheless, digital media play an important social and political role in Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia (including South-Central Somalia and the northern self-declared independent Republic of Somaliland). This paper shows how the development of the internet, mobile phones and other new communication technologies have been shaped by confl ict and power struggles in these countries.
It addresses some of the puzzles that characterize the media in the region: for example, how similar rates of penetration of media such as the internet and mobile phones have emerged in Somalia, a state which has not had a functioning government for two decades, and in Ethiopia, one of the countries with the most pervasive and centralized political apparatus in Africa.
The paper also gives particular attention to the role played by diasporas, which have been highly infl uential in starting the first websites, blogs and forums covering the politics of the Horn and facilitating debates among Eritreans, Ethiopians and Somalis living at home or abroad.
The paper concludes by discussing the often-innovative, but little acknowledged, ways in which digital media have blended with their predecessors to fashion unique hybrid media and communications systems.

Reconciling the needs and wants of respondents in two rural Ethiopian communities

by Tom Lavers

Published in Social Indicators Research

This paper uses the Quality of Life research carried out by the Wellbeing in Developing Countries (WeD) Research Group... more This paper uses the Quality of Life research carried out by the Wellbeing in Developing Countries (WeD) Research Group to examine the importance respondents have attributed to a variety of goals in two rural communities in Ethiopia. The results are analysed at the community, household and individual levels to expose the contestation involved in expressions of goal preference at different levels, and the power relations that underlie and contribute to the formation of these goal preferences. In this way, taking communities or households as homogenous units is shown to be inaccurate and potentially misleading. Analysis of individual case studies also provides insight into the complex decision-making process where people with access to limited resources are forced to give certain goals priority depending on current exigencies. The fact that the ordering of priorities can change with time highlights the dangers of any one-off measure being considered as a time-independent picture of individuals’ goals. By relating the results of the research to Doyal and Gough’s Theory of Human Need, the paper considers to what extent ‘universal’ human needs correspond to the most important goals as expressed by respondents in the Ethiopian research. Whilst considerable support is found for needs such as health, food and shelter, several respondents in the two research sites consider needs such as education to be unnecessary. This incongruence between the priority of people’s goals and theories of need leads us to question what the aim of development should be: to assist beneficiaries in the pursuit of what they want, or provide the things that they are thought to need.

‘Land grab’ as development strategy? The political economy of agricultural investment in Ethiopia

by Tom Lavers

Published in the Journal of Peasant Studies (free access)

This paper examines the domestic political economy of so-called ‘land-grabbing’ in Ethiopia, assessing the motivations... more This paper examines the domestic political economy of so-called ‘land-grabbing’ in Ethiopia, assessing the motivations of the Ethiopian government, which has strongly promoted foreign agricultural investment. The paper draws on a unique set of federal and regional databases detailing foreign and domestic investments in Ethiopia to analyse the likely role investment will play in the Ethiopian economy and the areas which have been targeted for investment. The analysis identifies increased foreign exchange earnings as the main likely contribution of investment but in doing so highlights concerns for food security in Ethiopia, as the goal of national self-sufficiency has given way to a risky trade-based food security strategy. The paper also argues that the federal government's attempts to direct investment to sparsely-populated lowlands have important implications for the ethnic self-determination that is a key tenet of Ethiopia's federal system.

The Red List of Endemic Trees & Shrubs of Ethiopia and Eritrea

by Jose Luis Vivero

A guide to endemic birds of Ethiopia and Eritrea

by Jose Luis Vivero

Progress on the red list of plants of Ethiopia and Eritrea: conservation and biogeography of endemic flowering taxa

by Jose Luis Vivero

A New Species and a New Combination in the Afroalpine Senecio NanusS. schultzii Complex (Asteraceae, Senecioneae)

by Jose Luis Vivero

Place-making, participative archaeologies and Mursi megaliths

by Tim Clack

co-authored with Dr Marcus Brittain (CAU, University of Cambridge, UK)

Here we present the context and nature of findings from the first season of archaeological survey and trial excavation... more Here we present the context and nature of findings from the first season of archaeological survey and trial excavation in an area of Ethiopia’s Lower Omo Valley. With the exception of well-documented early hominin discoveries, the region has previously been overlooked as a wilderness absent of human inhabitation. Such an outlook has fostered various consequences for strategies of legal, research and conservation policy within the regional boundaries of Mursiland in particular. In this paper recent discoveries of megalithic circular platforms and other archaeological remains are introduced against their dynamic
local and regional placement within present-day understandings of place. Furthermore, we emphasise the value of a participative archaeology research framework in which accountability is directed towards common ground between multiple ‘‘stake-holders’’ within the design and dissemination of the research agenda. This demonstrates important possibilities for intricate understandings of wilderness and landscape linked to heritage, conservation, development and tourism.

The Issue of Nationalities in Eritrean and Ethiopian Constitutions

by Uoldelul Chelati Dirar

in I. Taddia and V. Piergigli (eds.), International Conference on African Constitutions”, University of Bologna, November 26th-27th, 1998. Torino : Giappichelli, 2000, pp 221-246.