New release: The Wheel of Autonomy. By Felix Girke
17. September 2018
Rhetoric and Ethnicity in the Omo Valley
New York: Berghahn Books 2018
Reference
How do the Kara, a small population residing on the eastern bank of the Omo River in southern Ethiopia, manage to be neither annexed nor exterminated by any of the larger groups that surround them? Through the theoretical lens of rhetoric, this book offers an interactionalist analysis of how the Kara negotiate ethnic and non-ethnic differences among themselves, the relations with their various neighbors, and eventually their integration in the Ethiopian state. The model of the “Wheel of Autonomy” captures the interplay of distinction, agency and autonomy that drives these dynamics and offers an innovative perspective on social relations. (publisher)
Dr. Felix Girke is a social/cultural anthropologist and a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Konstanz. He is a former member of the Center of Excellence "Cultural Foundations of Social Integration”.