Zegeye Woldemariam Ambo

zegeye.woldemariam_ambo@uni-erfurt.de

Stipendiat der Deutsch-äthiopischen Stipendieninitiative (Forschungskolleg Transkulturelle Studien / Sammlung Perthes)

Zegeye Woldemariam Ambo

Curriculum Vitae

Since 2022
PhD Fellow Gerda Henkel Stiftung
Centre for Transcultural Studies

2012
Addis Ababa University
Master of Arts, Ethiopian Studies (Cultural studies)

2009
Jimma University
Higher Award

2007-2016
Coordinator of Social Science, Head Department of History

2006
Haramaya University 
Bachelor of Education, History

2000-2008
Bonga Education, College of Teachers Education
Lecturer of History (Ethiopian Culture and History, African History and World History)
 

Forschungsprojekt

From Kingdom to Tributary Province: Society, Ecology and Politics - An Ethnohistorical Study of Kafa (present-day Southwest Ethiopia), c. 1600–1900

The dissertation reconstructs the historical development of Kafa, with focus on ecocultural knowledge, from its establishment as a hierarchical state to its incorporation into the Ethiopian Empire. The Kingdom of Kafa was a historical political entity located in the southwestern highlands of present-day Ethiopia. It is a region known for its remarkable biodiversity and diverse ecosystems characterized by an impenetrable forest landscape. Over centuries Kafa had developed into a sovereign entity with its own socio-cultural and political institutions reflecting its internal developments under the successive Manjo, Maatto and Minjo dynasties. The Kingdom had developed an elaborate administrative structure supported by the Mikkrecho, the state’s great council, headed by successive hereditary kings. The people of Kafa have demonstrated a magnificent capacity of constructing and reconstructing diverse and complex political frameworks responsive to environmental imperatives. They developed refined local indigenous defense techniques that enabled them to resist successive invasion attempts from the Mecha Oromo and Abyssinian rulers. This indigenous polity was conquered and forcefully reduced to a tributary province of the Ethiopian Empire in 1897, resulting in the destruction of its indigenous administrative institutions. Culturally and socially different institutions, newly established by the militarily superior Abyssinian rulership, from now on dominated Kafa. Consequently, Kafa underwent multidimensional transformations during the critical juncture of imperial state formation in newly established southwestern Ethiopia from the last decade of the 19th century to the first decade of the 20th century. This had ultimately eroded all native administrative institutions and symbols of the kingdom of Kafa, while some cultural and religious institution, especially the clan organisation and some rituals, were practiced by the local population. This dissertation is exploring how the Kingdom of Kafa maintained its independent polity by developing its own eco-compatible socio-political culture. The political system was closely interwoven with indigenous ecological knowledge. To investigate such specific historical processes of human experience, the analysis is based on an interdisciplinary methodology that employs oral traditions, ethnographic data, travel accounts, archival materials, cartographic works, and research-based secondary sources. This scientific analysis of the history of the Kingdom of Kafa contributes to the historical and anthropological studies of various pre-colonial African societies and their kingdoms, which had their defined administrative machinery, in cases like Kafa headed by semi-divine kings before their forceful incorporation as integral parts of imperial-state building projects. 

Forschungsschwerpunkte

  • Ethnohistory
  • History of Territoriality and Cartography
  • Local and regional history
  • Ecological history

Vorträge (Auswahl)

  • “Indigenous Knowledge and Environment” at international research conferences held in Wallega University and Mekelle University and awarded recognition and letters of participation 2008  and 2009
  • "Local Knowledge of Borders and Territoriality of the Kingdom of Kafa: Historical insights on the Kelloo system appearing on Bieber´s Map", 21.04.2022, Centre for Transcultural Studies, Erfurt University.
  • Mikkerecho: An Indigenous Socio-political Institution of the Kingdom of Kafa Prior to 1897”, 09.05.–11.05.2023, Second Gerda Henkel workshop, Gotha.

Publikationen (Auswahl)

  • Change and Continuities in the Indigenous Rituals of  Qoollee  deejjoo  and its  role  in  Environmental  Protection. The  case  of  Kafa  Zone Gimbo woreda, in:  African journal of history and culture (9), 2017, S. 15–26.
  • Multifunctionality in (and around) the Kafa Biosphere Reserve. A socio cultural and gender perspective, in: Journal of Landscape Research, S. 50–62, 2020.
  • A historical glimpse of Hiriyoo. Rethinking the indigenous defence system and military mobilization of the Kingdom of Kafa prior to 1897, Southwest Ethiopia, in:  African journal of history and culture (13), 2021, S. 56–72.
  • Mapping an Entangled Past. An Interconnected Historical Map of Kafa (South-West Ethiopia) by Friedrich Julius Bieber (1905), in: Mapping Africa and Asia, 29.02.2024URL: https://doi.org/10.58079/vxi4.