Connecting-Africa | Find publications

Advanced search

Find:


Title Remembering Londósa: mediator and counterpoint in a "violent" society
Full text http://hdl.handle.net/1887/9639
Date 2004
Author(s) Abbink,J.
Contributor(s) Böll,V.
Abstract This chapter briefly presents the biography of Londósa, a ritual leader or 'komoru' of the Chari Suri people in southwestern Ethiopia and shows how a personal case study can highlight the social problems of an ethnic group. Suri face a crisis of security and of social continuity. Both their physical security and their food security are at risk, and they have enduring tense relations with neighbouring peoples and with the Ethiopian State. Like other ethnic groups (e.g. Nyangatom, Toposa, Anywaa, Meen) they use armed force to defend themselves or contest resources. The relatively quick "militarization" of societies like the Suri in the last 15 years has brought new problems and challenges. Londósa, as the Suri ritual mediator and leader, recognized the problems emerging and called for restraint to Suri exercise of violence but with little effect. He was powerless to prevent the gradual deterioration of internal social relations in Suri society resulting from this militarization. Feelings of powerlessness and deception with the way Suri society was developing undoubtedly contributed to his early death in June 2000. Notes, ref., sum. [Book abstract]
Subject(s) Continuity; Ethiopia; Ethiopia; social conditions; traditional rulers; Suri; biographies (form); Ethnic groups; Violence
Publisher Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden
Type of publication Article in monograph or in proceedings
Format application/pdf
Source Studia Aethiopica: in honour of Siegbert Uhlig on the occasion of his 65th birthday, 371 - 382 (2004)
Repository Leiden - African Studies Centre Leiden
Added to C-A: 2011-03-10;16:58:11