Seeking wise old men: six decades of Ethiopian Studies at the Frobenius Institute revisited

From 1935 to 1992, the Frobenius Institute focused on studies in southern Ethiopia. The anthropologists of the Frobenius Institute documented South Ethiopia’s cultural diversity before the Christian proselytization of the local population and the ascendance of the socialist DERG regime. This collective volume takes a critical look at the resulting ethnographic studies and renders an overview of Ethiopian studies and the political situation in Ethiopia during those sixty years. The book is divided into three parts: 1. Scientific and political environment for research in Ethiopia under three governments; 2. Southern Ethiopian studies at the Frobenius Institute: focuses and critical discussion; 3. Discussion of the archival material on Ethiopian Studies at the Frobenius Institute. Chapters: Introduction. Six decades of Ethiopian Studies at the Frobenius Institute. Reconstructing Ethiopia’s past (Sophia Thubauville); Anthropology in Ethiopia, 1950s-2016: a participant’s view (Herbert S. Lewis); Haile Selassie and the Ethiopian modernity (Asfa-Wossen Asserate); Field research in southern Ethiopia confronted with changing politics of ethnicity (Ulrich Braukmper); Ethnographic filmmaking in Ethiopia. The approach and the film reception (Itsushi Kawase); Definite segregation or permeable boundaries? Revisiting the Frobenius research on artisans, hunters and slave descendants in Ethiopia (Susanne Epple); Social divisions and their gradual transformation among the Konso in southern Ethiopia (Kansite Gellebo); The Frobenius Institute’s study of rock art in Ethiopia (Richard Kuba); ‘Informants and interpreters’. Partners in the production of knowledge during the Frobenius expeditions in southern Ethiopia (Dirk Bustorf); ‘Wie es eigentlich gewesen’: Eike Haberland’s Rankean approach to southern Ethiopian cultures and its legacy today (Jon Abbink); How to finance an expedition? Insights from the archives of the Frobenius Institute (Sabine Dinslage); Collection activities of the Frobenius Institute expeditions to southern Ethiopia (Kim Glck); Involuntary pioneers of ethnographic film in southern Ethiopia (Sophia Thubauville); Goldmine and minefield. A native anthropologist’s review of Eike Haberland’s culture-historical research on Wolaita, Ethiopia (Data Dea Barata); A cursory reflection on the research of the Frobenius Institute on the Sidama people of Ethiopia (Ambaye Ogato); The Gedeo. Adolf Ellegard Jensen’s ethnographic perspective (Getachew Senishaw). [ASC leiden abstract]