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In this paper I discuss food, cultural identity and development among the agropastoral Suri people of Southwest Ethiopia. Their food system is discussed in its actual form and in its process of change, accelerated since a decade or so. The theoretical concern of this paper is with issues of identity formation and continuity through the materiality of food and food systems, in the context of varying assumptions underlying discourses of development. The Suri people remain at the margins of the modernizing Ethiopian state and experienced a decline in food security, health and wealth in the last decade, coinciding with growing inter-group tension and new state developmental plans which devalue the agro-pastoral mode of life. State support or investment is in massive sugar and other mono-crop plantations and in enterprises by foreigners and private capitalists, not matched by parallel investment in local economies of agro-pastoralism and crop cultivation. Some of the effects on the production system, diet and ‘food sovereignty’ of the Suri are described so as to highlight the challenges they face, including growing internal differentiation, pressure on modifying their food system and the increasing sale and use of alcoholic drinks. Observing the, often ambivalent, changes in the Suri food pattern and food consumption shows the challenges they face in (re)defining group identity, responding to internal tensions and to state-capitalist modernizing schemes that impact their way of life.

This volume contains a range of original studies on the controversial role of youth in politics, conflicts and rebellious movements in Africa. A common aim of the studies is to try and explain why patterns of generational conflict and violent response among younger age groups in Africa are showing such a remarkably uneven spread across the continent. An introduction by Jon Abbink (Being young in Africa: the politics of despair and renewal) is follwed by three parts: 1. Historical perspectives on youth as agents of change (Murray Last on youth in Muslim northern Nigeria, 1750-2000; G. Thomas Burgess on youth in revolutionary Zanzibar); 2. State, crisis and the mobilization of youth (Peter Mwangi Kagwanja on youth identity and the politics of transition in Kenya, 1997-2002; Karel Arnaut on youth and the politics of history in Côte d'Ivoire; Jok Madut Jok on the position of youth in South Sudan; Piet Konings on anglophone university students and anglophone nationalist struggles in Cameroon; and Sara Rich Dorman on youth and politics in Eritrea); 3. Interventions: dealing with youth in crisis (Yves Marguerat on street children in Lom‚, Togo; Angela McIntyre on the phenomenon of child soldiers in Africa; Simon Simonse on failed Statehood and the violence of young male pastoralists in the Horn of Africa; and Krijn Peters on the reintegration of young ex-combatants in Sierra Leone). [ASC Leiden abstract]

This volume contains a range of original studies on the controversial role of youth in politics, conflicts and rebellious movements in Africa. A common aim of the studies is to try and explain why patterns of generational conflict and violent response among younger age groups in Africa are showing such a remarkably uneven spread across the continent. An introduction by Jon Abbink (Being young in Africa: the politics of despair and renewal) is follwed by three parts: 1. Historical perspectives on youth as agents of change (Murray Last on youth in Muslim northern Nigeria, 1750-2000; G. Thomas Burgess on youth in revolutionary Zanzibar); 2. State, crisis and the mobilization of youth (Peter Mwangi Kagwanja on youth identity and the politics of transition in Kenya, 1997-2002; Karel Arnaut on youth and the politics of history in C“te d'Ivoire; Jok Madut Jok on the position of youth in South Sudan; Piet Konings on anglophone university students and anglophone nationalist struggles in Cameroon; and Sara Rich Dorman on youth and politics in Eritrea); 3. Interventions: dealing with youth in crisis (Yves Marguerat on street children in Lom‚, Togo; Angela McIntyre on the phenomenon of child soldiers in Africa; Simon Simonse on failed Statehood and the violence of young male pastoralists in the Horn of Africa; and Krijn Peters on the reintegration of young ex-combatants in Sierra Leone). [ASC Leiden abstract]

In this article a comparative study is presented of the Indian and the Ethiopian Jews in Israel, immigrant communities that went through similar experiences of integration and accommodation in Israel, despite the time lag in their arrival. Elements of their history and sociocultural background in the countries of origin are discussed in order to explain the emergence and status of ethnic identity in a complex new society with a shared background ideology of integration (Zionism). An assessment is made of the (perceived) initial religious and social marginality of the two groups as it may have interacted with their social "careers" and group status. The socioeconomic structure of Israeli society has contributed to "reproducing ethnicity". The analysis suggests that the "Indian" and "Ethiopian" Jewish subidentities are now well-established in Israel, illustrating that the cultural content of "Jewishness" or Jewish identity is quite diverse

This article examines the social and political background of escalating violence between ethnic groups in southwestern Ethiopia who until recently had customary and ritually sanctioned ways of resolving conflict. It focuses on the Maji area, a frontier region inhabited by two indigenous groups - the Dizi and the Suri, and people from a mixed background, descendants of immigrants and recent arrivals taking up posts as soldiers, traders and government officials in the small towns. The article outlines the economic, social and cultural factors involved in the generation of intergroup violence in the area, as well as traditional Suri and Dizi reconciliation rituals. It also indicates the changing arenas of 'ethnic' self-definition and economic opportunity for local groups in post-1991 Ethiopia. An analysis of a reconciliation meeting organized in the Maji area by the new government in 1991 reveals that in the efforts of State agents to mediate emerging conflicts in conditions of increasing scarcity and identity struggle, the use of customary mediation mechanisms was formally recognized. But at the same time, efficient mediation was structurally impeded by the very nature of the exercise of authority by State agents and their failure to implement practical measures of conflict resolution. This failure was matched by the inability of the representatives of the ethnic groups concerned to redefine their relationship in a constructive manner.

Despite its ancient history in Ethiopia, Islam has always been a secondary status religion in the country. It emerged in the shadow of Christianity and has often suffered from suppression and discrimination. This has had an impact on the social opportunities, religious and civil rights, and the pattern of self-organization of Ethiopian Muslims. During the last decade, new issues of religious identity and communal political identity among Muslims in Ethiopia have emerged in the wake of political and economic reform processes, and as a result of the process of cultural globalization. This article gives a historical overview of the emergence and development of Islam in Ethiopia, its position in the pre-1974 empire and its relationship with Christianity, and changes under the Mengistu regime (1974-1991), which actively discouraged religion in all its forms. Finally, it discusses developments since 1991, paying special attention to questions of identity and the 'ethnic' dimensions of Islam. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum

According to the policy of the government of the Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), ethnic identity is the ideological basis of Ethiopia's political organization and administration and as such has been enshrined in the Federal Constitution of December 1994. Yet the Constitution's explicit reinstatement of ethnicity in law coincides with a politico-economic situation which has made ethnoregional groups more interdependent than ever before, and where the central State has come to play an essential role as a resource and a mechanism of redistribution. The author looks at the way in which ethnicity is translated in the clauses on nationality rights, noting the originality of the Constitution, on the one hand, and the difficulties and ambiguities surrounding the structures of implementation of the ethnicization formula, on the other. The impression arises that "self-determination" has been granted for rhetorical and ideological purposes, and that the central federal government has no intention of relinquishing real power. There is, furthermore, no possibility of judicial review by the courts of State executive and legislative powers. Nor has the Constitution solved the problem of reconciling the various generations of rights. Moreover, the failure to define or design the Ethiopian polity as an arena of compromise or issue politics creates problems for the realization of a country-wide democratic polity. Notes, ref., sum. (p. i)

The relation of pastoral societies with the 'outside world' has proved to be one of structural deterioration. This poses questions as to the political space remaining for these societies within the State arenas to which they nominally belong and the nature of their ethnoreligious identities. The pastoral societies of East Africa, while varied in nature and social organization, still show some common characteristics with regard to religion and political system. The author argues that the principles of clan segmentation, age-group structure, the ritual-cyclical ordering of community life, and decentralized, regionally exercised power will remain more important organizing elements for pastoral societies than purely ideological-religious factors. This is a result of certain macroconditions such as their necessary confinement to marginal areas, their geographical mobility, and their lack of integration into the wider State society in terms of literacy, economic surplus extraction, social mobility, or political representation. The author looks at the 'strategies' of various agropastoral groups in terms of religious response and political action within these macroconditions. He uses the examples of the Boran in Ethiopia and Kenya, the Nuer in Sudan and Ethiopia, and the Surma of southern Ethiopia.

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 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

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 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)