The thesis focuses on the problem of Oromo Christianity's lack of indigenous character with special focus on the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY). It examines the methods of mission used by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (EOC) that introduced Christianity to the Oromo people for the first time. It also examines the methods of mission used by three Protestant mission societies who followed the EOC, evangelised the Wollaga Oromo and established the EECMY. These mission bodies were, the Swedish Evangelical Mission (SEM), the United Presbyterian Mission (UPCNAM) and the Hermannsburg Mission (HM). The Study seeks to investigate whether the four above mentioned Christian mission bodies' methods of mission contributed to the Oromo Christianity's lack of indigenous character. Moreover, the study examines whether the apparent language of worship problem within the EECMY has historical root linked to the mission methods. It is the emphasis of the researcher of this study that the Christian mission methods used to evangelise the Wollaga Oromos were generally inadequate due to missionaries' lack of sensitivity to the culture. The study calls the EECMY to revise her traditional methods of mission that she inherited from the missionaries and root her message within the culture of the Oromo people. Christianity must identify with certain norms and values of Oromo culture. This can be done through contextual model of evangelism. Out of different sub models of contextual theology, this study suggests inculturation model as a method for incarnating the Church in the culture of the Oromo people. It is the writer's belief that inculturation model may be answer to the Oromo Christianity's lack of indigenous character and the apparent problem within the EECMY. Also inculturation can be helpful method in reaching out the non-Christian Oromos with the Gospel. Though the study focuses on the Oromo Christianity and the EECMY, the question and the problems concerning Christianity's being foreign to the culture might be similar in many Churches in the entire Ethiopia and also in Africa. Unless otherwise indicated the Scriptural quotations are taken from the GOOD NEWS BIBLE: The Bible in Today's English version, copyright Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1978,1986. Printed in the United States of America. / Thesis (M.Th.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1999.

As the first analytic history of Ethiopian medicine, this thesis explores the interchange between the institutional development of a national medical network and the lived experiences of women as patients and practitioners of medicine from the years 1940-1975. Using birth and gender as mechanisms to explore the nation's public health history allows me to pursue alternative threads of enquiry: I ask questions not only about state activities and policy pursuits, but also about the relevance and acceptance of those actions in the lives of the citizenry. This thesis is also the first medical history of a non-colonial African country, opening up new questions about the role of non-Western actors in the expansion of Western medicine in the twentieth century. I explore the ways in which the exceptional history of Ethiopia can be couched in existing narratives of African modernity, medicine, and birth history. Issues of local agency and the creation of new social elites in the pursuit of modernity are all pertinent to the case of Ethiopia. Through both extensive archival research and oral interviews of nearly 200 participants in Haile Selassie's medical campaigns, I argue that the extent to which the imperial medical project in Ethiopia 'succeeded' was highly predicated on pre-existing conditions of gender, class, and geography.

This thesis attempts to address how and why North Shäwa deteriorated from a political heartland to a region of impoverished peasants by the beginning of the 20th century. One of the factors that determine the selection of the place for a seat of the government for a region or country and sustainability of its system is its resource potential. In this case, arable and grazing land with other related land resources were decisive. They were some of the major factors contributing to both the origin and development of the kingdom. However, by the beginning of the 20th century, the region was abandoned by the court and by a significant proportion of its population. This was mainly because of the impoverishment of the region. The growth of the number of consumers (town dwellers) and the supplies needed by the kingdom exceeded the carrying capacity of North Shäwa. The economic productivity of the region could not correspond to the development of its needs. Thus, this thesis accords due emphasis to the factors that contributed to the impoverishment of North Shäwa and the consequences that followed. Throughout the thesis, North Shäwan peasants are the main subject of discussion. Political, social, cultural and geographical factors that impacted on the peasants’ economy and that retarded its development are discussed in the study. It also attempts to unearth the measures taken by the court and peoples of North Shäwa to withstand or escape from the prevailing socio-economic problems. Finally a comparison is made with other regions of the country to describe the political and socio-economic status of North Shäwans that continue to live in the region. This discussion covers the period from the 1880s up to the Italian occupation of Ethiopia in 1935 / History / D.Litt. et Phil. (History)

This thesis attempts to address how and why North Shäwa deteriorated from a political heartland to a region of impoverished peasants by the beginning of the 20th century. One of the factors that determine the selection of the place for a seat of the government for a region or country and sustainability of its system is its resource potential. In this case, arable and grazing land with other related land resources were decisive. They were some of the major factors contributing to both the origin and development of the kingdom. However, by the beginning of the 20th century, the region was abandoned by the court and by a significant proportion of its population. This was mainly because of the impoverishment of the region. The growth of the number of consumers (town dwellers) and the supplies needed by the kingdom exceeded the carrying capacity of North Shäwa. The economic productivity of the region could not correspond to the development of its needs. Thus, this thesis accords due emphasis to the factors that contributed to the impoverishment of North Shäwa and the consequences that followed. Throughout the thesis, North Shäwan peasants are the main subject of discussion. Political, social, cultural and geographical factors that impacted on the peasants’ economy and that retarded its development are discussed in the study. It also attempts to unearth the measures taken by the court and peoples of North Shäwa to withstand or escape from the prevailing socio-economic problems. Finally a comparison is made with other regions of the country to describe the political and socio-economic status of North Shäwans that continue to live in the region. This discussion covers the period from the 1880s up to the Italian occupation of Ethiopia in 1935 / History / D.Litt. et Phil. (History)

Arabic text with English summary / This research comprises a section on preliminary issues, an introduction, four chapters with sub-divisions and a conclusion. Preliminary issues focus on the research proposal. The introduction reviews factors contributing to the concealment of Muslims’ roles in Abyssinia through negligence, selective reportage and duplicitous political dealings. Chapter One tackles the varying definitions of Abyssinia diachronically and then provides valuable social, economic, political, religious and climatic information about the country and its peoples. Chapter Two analyses the varying levels of relations between Abyssinia and the Arabian Peninsula including the ethnic, cultural, linguistic, religious and political ties down the ages. Chapter Three discusses the migration of some of Prophet Muhammad’s companions to Abyssinia and possible reasons for selecting that land for settlement. It details identities of these people, their areas of arrival and domicile; together with a probe into the Christian ruler, Negus’s warm relations with them. Chapter Four overviews Muslim dynasties in Abyssinia: the causes for their formation, prosperity and decline. The bitter conflicts with Christians and followers of traditional religions are also explored; together with outcomes of these for Muslims up to the present. The Conclusion provides a resume of my most important findings. / Religious Studies and Arabic / M.A. (Islamic Studies)

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No description available.

The early 1990s saw a major change in the Ethiopian history in so far as Ethiopian media consumption practices was concerned. With the change of government in 1991, the ‘Iron Curtail’ prohibiting the dissemination of Western symbolic products within the country was lifted which in turn led to a surge in demand for Western predominantly American media texts. In order to supply this new demand, informal video houses showing primarily American action movies were opened in Addis Ababa. There was a significant shift in Ethiopians’ films consumption practices which were previously limited to watching films produced by socialist countries mainly the former Soviet Union. This study set out to probe reasons for the attraction of American action movies shown in video-viewing houses in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia amongst the urban unemployed male youth. Particularly, it examines how the meanings produced by and embedded in the cultural industries of the West are appropriated in the day-to-day lives of the youth. The importance of video houses as a shared male cultural space for Ethiopian unemployed youth and the watching of American action movies in this space are the main entry and focus of this study. Using qualitative methods such as observation, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions, the study explores what happens in this cultural space and how one makes sense of the impact of American media on local audiences. The findings of the study point to the embeddedness of viewing practice in everyday life and the importance of local contexts in understanding text-reader interaction. This is shown by the male youth’s tendency to use media messages as a mode of escape and a symbolic distancing from their lived impoverished reality. The study also seeks to highlight that the video houses as cultural space have contributed to the creation of marginal male youth identities in the Ethiopian patriarchal society. As such, these and other findings, the study argues, highlight the deficiencies of the media imperialism thesis with its definitive claims for cultural homogenisation as effect of globalisation of media. As such, this study should be read as emphasising the capability of local audience groups in Third World country like Ethiopia to construct their own meanings and thus their own local cultures and identities, even in the face of their virtually complete dependence on the image flows distributed by the transnational culture industries.

From the deployment of Roger's Rangers in the Seven Years War to the Sunni Awakening in the Second Gulf War, indigenous force cooperation has been a hallmark of significant armed conflicts in modern history. Indigenous forces are, by definition, recruited locally and are paramilitary in nature, as, for the most part, are their activities. They are not regular police, gendarme, or military forces. Rather, they represent a subset of a broader category of force that includes paramilitaries, unconventional forces, guerrillas, some militias, and auxiliaries. The focus of this dissertation is indigenous force cooperation. Indigenous force cooperation occurs when a metropolitan power (be it imperial or expeditionary) collaborates with one or more indigenous forces. Despite recurring employment, indigenous force cooperation remains largely ignored in historical literature and there has been no comprehensive study of the nature, structure, function, or experience of these forces. Using comparative case studies of indigenous force cooperation in Palestine Mandate and Ethiopia during the Second World War, this project seeks to identify whether successful indigenous force cooperation in war exists as a unified historical phenomenon and whether it was instrumental to theatres of operation in which it took place. The research supporting this dissertation includes personally conducted interviews with veterans of the indigenous forces and examinations of recently declassified documents. The comparative framework allows the project to determine what, if any, underlying patterns connect cases of indigenous force employment and govern the success or failure of cooperation. This dissertation consists of a comparative examination of four questions: why cooperation occurred, how cooperation was structured, what happened during cooperation, and whether cooperation was effective. Each chapter of this dissertation addresses one of the questions. Answering these questions will support a number of areas of study, including imperial history and contemporary strategic studies, by providing a theoretical framework by which to understand other cases of indigenous force cooperation.

Doctorat en philosophie et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished