War and the Politics of Identity in Ethiopia: The Making of Enemies and Allies in the Horn of Africa (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781847016126)

Examines war and the impact of warfare on identity formation in Ethiopia.

Images of war, narratives of suffering and notions of ethnicity are intrinsically linked to Western perceptions of Africa. Filtered through a mostly international media the information of African wars is confined to narrow categories of explanation emerging from and adapted to a Western history and political culture. This book aims at reversing this process; to look at war and suffering from the point of view of those who fight it and suffer through it. Indoing so it reveals that the simplistic models explaining contemporary wars in Africa which are reproduced in a Western discourse are basically false.
This book examines the understanding of war and the impact of warfare onthe formation and conceptualisation of identities in Ethiopia. Building on historical trajectories of enemy images, the recent Eritean-Ethiopian war [1998-2000] is used as an empirical backdrop to explore war's formative impact, by analysing politics of identity and shifting perceptions of enemies and allies.

KJETIL TRONVOLL is Professor in Human Rights, Peace and Conflict Studies at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, University of Oslo. Hisother publications include Brothers at War: Making Sense of the Eritrean-Ethiopian War (co-author; James Currey/Ohio University Press, 2000) and The Ethiopian Red Terror Trials: Transitional Justice Challenged (co-editor; James Currey 2009) .

Author: Kjetil Tronvoll
ISBN-10: 184701612X
ISBN-13: 9781847016126
Publisher: James Currey
Language: English
Published: 03/19/2009
Pages: 256
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 8.60h x 5.70w x 0.90d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 02/01/2010
Reference and Research Bk News 08/01/2010 pg. 58