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Professor Netsanet Gebremichael, Fatema Mernissi Postdoctoral Fellow in Social and Cultural Studies, The Africa Institute reckons Eritrea’s past with Ethiopia in her research presentation titled, “Ambivalent memories of imperial legacies: Asmara as ‘beautiful’ and ‘segregationist’ from Ethiopia” conducted on February 1, 2023, at The Africa Institute Library.
Netsanet Gebremichael holds a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Social Studies from the Makerere Institute of Social Research, Makerere University, Uganda. Her Ph.D. studies consisted of documenting the oral memories of people who lived in Asmara between 1950 and 1975. This seminar stems from her Ph.D. dissertation and complements her current book manuscript entitled, “Memory in times of Ruptures: Reminiscing Asmara from Ethiopia”.
Professor Gebremichael explores popular memories that are conceptualized as ruptured archives to build reckoning as a mode of narrative between past and present in the archival context of the afterlives of war that are in circulation in the form of reminiscences of Asmara in Ethiopia.
The seminar discusses how the capital town of Eritrea, Asmara, is depicted alternately as Italian, Eritrean, and Ethiopian thus showing the competing claims of ‘ownership’ that traverse its colonial and postcolonial histories and multifaceted identity.
“These contemporary literary and oral reminiscences of Asmara show how Asmara’s architectural legacies are remembered to express memories of ambivalence between beauty and inhibition, being modern and segregated. Asmara gets represented as a model town for other African cities and a city of colonial decay and segregation, in these contradictory accounts of memories of Asmara, a de-colonial method of engagement seems to emerge,” said Professor Gebremichael.
Professor Gebremichael, a historian and ethnographer, uses an innovative methodological journey engaging in conversation on-ground to contextualize the stories based on collecting archival sources to draw insights and observations through real experiences. Her presentation recounts her own memories of Asmara, historicizes Asmara in its colonial and post-colonial periods, traces the important timelines of Ethiopia and Eritrean Independence, and how the city, Asmara has turned into a history of memories over time with a focus on Italian architecture of Asmara being depicted both as a sign of modernization and oppression.
“The historiographies of Eritrea and Ethiopia locates memory in four frames namely, nationalism, commemorative and monuments as works of memory, cultural roots of memory in music, novels, poetry, and cinema, and lastly, oral history, life histories, and subalternity,” said Professor Gebremichael who has conducted several oral history projects as part of her academic research with the focus mainly on memory, archival studies, historical and cultural documentation practices.
She examines what kind of meaning memories entail and how they archive through their oral cultures. Her chosen literary and oral sources are analyzed to illustrate Asmara as a site of cultural encounter and a historical palimpsest depicted in the many literary works, such as the poems by Tsegaye Gebremedihin, Haile Melekot Mewael; and the novels by Bealu Girma and Tesfaye Gebreab.
“Asmara’s past is called upon as a witness and remains history. I am using creative productions of memory to serve as archives of the afterlives of war through oral memories, oral life stories, written life narratives, photographs, remains of the day – objects, official state archives and novels, songs, and poetry,” she adds.
Professor Gebremichael shares a preliminary argument of – reckoning as a mode of the narrative for contested histories. “I seek the present archive of the afterlives of war in their ruptured form to note how the past circulates through lived experiences and other forms of cultural expressions. I am sifting through pieces from the past and the present to lay out the reckoning path in memories of Asmara – a humanist intervention of telling stories of lost lives and imaginations, embodied lived experiences, creative imaginations of memory as aspiration for future making. These are important as a mode of narrative that helps reckon with our past and connects us to our present.”
Professor Gebremichael is also simultaneously preparing a monograph for Women in the Ethiopian Student Movement (1950-1978) as a recipient of the Global Research Network Grant managed by the School of Oriental and African Studies, London.
The seminar was moderated by Naminata Diabate, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, Cornell University, and Ali A. Mazrui Senior Fellow at The Africa Institute. She invited diverse opinions, comments, and questions from the audience, including senior faculty, fellows, visiting scholars, and guests.
Through these lectures and workshops, The Africa Institute reaffirms its mission as a center for the study and research of Africa and its diaspora and its commitment to the training of a new generation of critical thinkers in African and African Diaspora studies.
Professor Netsanet Gebremichael, Fatema Mernissi Postdoctoral Fellow in Social and Cultural Studies, The Africa Institute reckons Eritrea’s past with Ethiopia in her research presentation titled, “Ambivalent memories of imperial legacies: Asmara as ‘beautiful’ and ‘segregationist’ from Ethiopia” conducted on February 1, 2023, at The Africa Institute Library.
Professor Netsanet Gebremichael, Fatema Mernissi Postdoctoral Fellow in Social and Cultural Studies, The Africa Institute reckons Eritrea’s past with Ethiopia in her research presentation titled, “Ambivalent memories of imperial legacies: Asmara as ‘beautiful’ and ‘segregationist’ from Ethiopia” conducted on February 1, 2023, at The Africa Institute Library.
Netsanet Gebremichael holds a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Social Studies from the Makerere Institute of Social Research, Makerere University, Uganda. Her Ph.D. studies consisted of documenting the oral memories of people who lived in Asmara between 1950 and 1975. This seminar stems from her Ph.D. dissertation and complements her current book manuscript entitled, “Memory in times of Ruptures: Reminiscing Asmara from Ethiopia”.
Professor Gebremichael explores popular memories that are conceptualized as ruptured archives to build reckoning as a mode of narrative between past and present in the archival context of the afterlives of war that are in circulation in the form of reminiscences of Asmara in Ethiopia.
The seminar discusses how the capital town of Eritrea, Asmara, is depicted alternately as Italian, Eritrean, and Ethiopian thus showing the competing claims of ‘ownership’ that traverse its colonial and postcolonial histories and multifaceted identity.
“These contemporary literary and oral reminiscences of Asmara show how Asmara’s architectural legacies are remembered to express memories of ambivalence between beauty and inhibition, being modern and segregated. Asmara gets represented as a model town for other African cities and a city of colonial decay and segregation, in these contradictory accounts of memories of Asmara, a de-colonial method of engagement seems to emerge,” said Professor Gebremichael.
Professor Gebremichael, a historian and ethnographer, uses an innovative methodological journey engaging in conversation on-ground to contextualize the stories based on collecting archival sources to draw insights and observations through real experiences. Her presentation recounts her own memories of Asmara, historicizes Asmara in its colonial and post-colonial periods, traces the important timelines of Ethiopia and Eritrean Independence, and how the city, Asmara has turned into a history of memories over time with a focus on Italian architecture of Asmara being depicted both as a sign of modernization and oppression.
“The historiographies of Eritrea and Ethiopia locates memory in four frames namely, nationalism, commemorative and monuments as works of memory, cultural roots of memory in music, novels, poetry, and cinema, and lastly, oral history, life histories, and subalternity,” said Professor Gebremichael who has conducted several oral history projects as part of her academic research with the focus mainly on memory, archival studies, historical and cultural documentation practices.
She examines what kind of meaning memories entail and how they archive through their oral cultures. Her chosen literary and oral sources are analyzed to illustrate Asmara as a site of cultural encounter and a historical palimpsest depicted in the many literary works, such as the poems by Tsegaye Gebremedihin, Haile Melekot Mewael; and the novels by Bealu Girma and Tesfaye Gebreab.
“Asmara’s past is called upon as a witness and remains history. I am using creative productions of memory to serve as archives of the afterlives of war through oral memories, oral life stories, written life narratives, photographs, remains of the day – objects, official state archives and novels, songs, and poetry,” she adds.
Professor Gebremichael shares a preliminary argument of – reckoning as a mode of the narrative for contested histories. “I seek the present archive of the afterlives of war in their ruptured form to note how the past circulates through lived experiences and other forms of cultural expressions. I am sifting through pieces from the past and the present to lay out the reckoning path in memories of Asmara – a humanist intervention of telling stories of lost lives and imaginations, embodied lived experiences, creative imaginations of memory as aspiration for future making. These are important as a mode of narrative that helps reckon with our past and connects us to our present.”
Professor Gebremichael is also simultaneously preparing a monograph for Women in the Ethiopian Student Movement (1950-1978) as a recipient of the Global Research Network Grant managed by the School of Oriental and African Studies, London.
The seminar was moderated by Naminata Diabate, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, Cornell University, and Ali A. Mazrui Senior Fellow at The Africa Institute. She invited diverse opinions, comments, and questions from the audience, including senior faculty, fellows, visiting scholars, and guests.
Through these lectures and workshops, The Africa Institute reaffirms its mission as a center for the study and research of Africa and its diaspora and its commitment to the training of a new generation of critical thinkers in African and African Diaspora studies.
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