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)
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.
Universität Erfurt (Campus)
Nordhäuser Str. 63
99089 Erfurt