Abebe Zegeye – författare

The writings in this edition explore historical and contemporary issues in Ethiopia as the country underwent change and celebrated its new millennium. However, despite the recognizance of socio-economic and political changes, Ethiopia still faces enduring problems and challenges to its stability and continuity. The political past haunts the country while it is facing the future with optimism and hope. The contributors in this edition examine historical and contemporaneous issues with different lenses; they investigate the multiplicity and complexity of the contradictions that define traditional and modern Ethiopia. The contributions highlight the significance of the instability, dislocation, conflict and transformation inherent in any society. None of these writings, however, celebrate the forces that create the conflict; they are cautious not to glorify the present and romanticize the past. On the contrary, they seek to contextualize the challenges which the country faces with a view to open a dialogue, not exclusively among Ethiopians, but with scholars and social activists in the rest of Africa, as well as the international community. The contributions cover and examine such important topics as historiography, political power and legitimacy, ideology and radical views, knowledge transmission and modernity, emigration and the Ethiopian Diaspora, ethnic and linguistic identity, patriarchy and feminist discourses in a traditional society, public policies and economic development, traditional and modern art and culture, and neo-liberalism and globalization. This book was published as a special issue of African Identities.

European and African works have found it difficult to move past the image of Africa as a place of exotica and relentless brutality. This book explores the status and critical relationship between politics, culture, literary creativity, criticism, education and publishing in the context of promoting Africa’s indigenous knowledge, and seeks to recover some of the sites where Africans continue to elaborate conflicting politics of self-affirmations. It both acknowledges and steps outside the protocols of analysis informed by nationalism, differentiating the forms that postcolonial theories have taken, and arguing for a selective appropriation of theory that emerges from Africa’s lived experiences.

Originally published in 1990, this book provides a unique view of South Africa and when it was published, it represented a coming of age of a new and vigorous strand of scholarship. The contributors are black social scientists, doctors or trade unionists, some working inside black universities which subsequently turned against the apartheid planners who created them. This book reflects the conviction that the black people of South Africa are not only passive victims of white repression, but actors with the capacity for both overt and covert resistance. Whether writing about the health service, shopfloor struggles, or the evasion of pass controls, the contributors combine scholarly analysis with an insider’s knowledge of the difference between apartheid theory and the social reality of South Africa during the 1990s.

Originally published in 1990, this book provides a unique view of South Africa and when it was published, it represented a coming of age of a new and vigorous strand of scholarship. The contributors are black social scientists, doctors or trade unionists, some working inside black universities which subsequently turned against the apartheid planners who created them. This book reflects the conviction that the black people of South Africa are not only passive victims of white repression, but actors with the capacity for both overt and covert resistance. Whether writing about the health service, shopfloor struggles, or the evasion of pass controls, the contributors combine scholarly analysis with an insider’s knowledge of the difference between apartheid theory and the social reality of South Africa during the 1990s.

The writings in this edition explore historical and contemporary issues in Ethiopia as the country underwent change and celebrated its new millennium. However, despite the recognizance of socio-economic and political changes, Ethiopia still faces enduring problems and challenges to its stability and continuity. The political past haunts the country while it is facing the future with optimism and hope. The contributors in this edition examine historical and contemporaneous issues with different lenses; they investigate the multiplicity and complexity of the contradictions that define traditional and modern Ethiopia. The contributions highlight the significance of the instability, dislocation, conflict and transformation inherent in any society. None of these writings, however, celebrate the forces that create the conflict; they are cautious not to glorify the present and romanticize the past. On the contrary, they seek to contextualize the challenges which the country faces with a view to open a dialogue, not exclusively among Ethiopians, but with scholars and social activists in the rest of Africa, as well as the international community. The contributions cover and examine such important topics as historiography, political power and legitimacy, ideology and radical views, knowledge transmission and modernity, emigration and the Ethiopian Diaspora, ethnic and linguistic identity, patriarchy and feminist discourses in a traditional society, public policies and economic development, traditional and modern art and culture, and neo-liberalism and globalization. This book was published as a special issue of African Identities.

This title was first published in 2003. Aimed at examining contemporary debates and issues which are at the cutting edge of the social sciences, Pal Ahluwalia and Abebe Zegeye have put together a book on subjects of critical importance to the African condition. A combination of empirical and theoretical materials, this text introduces new perspectives.

This title was first published in 2003. Aimed at examining contemporary debates and issues which are at the cutting edge of the social sciences, Pal Ahluwalia and Abebe Zegeye have put together a book on subjects of critical importance to the African condition. A combination of empirical and theoretical materials, this text introduces new perspectives.

The essays in this collection reveal that the social and political development of post-apartheid South Africa depends to an important degree on the evolving cultural, social and political identities of its diverse population and on the role of the media of mass communications in the country's new multicultural democracy. The popular struggle against the country's former apartheid regime and the on-going democratisation of South African politics have generated enormous creativity and inspiration as well as many contradictions and unfulfilled expectations. In the present period of social transformation, the legacy of the country's past is both a source of continuing conflict and tension as well as a cause for celebration and hope. Post-apartheid South Africa provides an important case study of social transformation and how the cultural, social and political identities of a diverse population and the structure and practices of the media of mass communications affect the prospects for developing a multicultural democracy. The promise and the challenge of building a multicultural democratic society in a country with a racist and violent authoritarian legacy involves people with different identities and interests learning how to respect their differences and to live together in peace. It involves developing an inclusive or overarching common identity and a commitment to working together for a common destiny based on social equity and justice. South Africa's media of mass communications have an important role to play in the process of unprecedented social transformation - both in developing the respect for differences and the overarching identity as well as providing the public forum and the channels of communication needed for the successful development of the country's multicultural democracy. In South Africa, the democratization of the media must go hand in hand with the democratization of the political system in order to ensure that the majority of the citizenry participate effectively in the country's multicultural democracy. Topics covered include The "Struggle for African Identity: Thabo Mbeki's African Renaissance", "Between the Local and the Global: South African Languages and the Internet", "Shooting the East/Veils and Masks: Uncovering Orientalism in South African Media" and "Black and White in Ink: Discourses of Resistance in South African Cartooning".Contributors are Pal Ahluwalia, Gabeba Baderoon, Richard L. Harris, Sean Jacobs, Elizabeth Le Roux, Andy Mason, Thembisa Mjwacu, Herman Wasserman, and Abebe Zegeye.