SEMINAR – Harar on the Eve of the Imperial Occupations (ca. 1850-1875)

SÉMINAIRE/SEMINAR

Harar on the Eve of the Imperial Occupations (ca. 1850-1875)

Friday 9th February, 2 PM

@ French Center for Ethiopian Studies, Berhanou Abebe Library (CFEE, Jan Meda)

By Héloïse Mercier (Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne University, Orient & Méditerannée)

Héloïse Mercier is a PhD candidate in History at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and the UMR Orient & Méditerranée. The working title of her dissertation is: “Living Through Imperial Times: Historiography, Narratives and Beliefs Through Violence and Change in Harar, Eastern Ethiopia (19th-20th c.)”.

Starting from 1875, Harar and its hinterland were successively occupied and administered by Khedivial Egypt (1875-1885), the Kingdom of Shewa then Christian Ethiopian Empire (from 1887), and Fascist Italy (1936-1941). Since the 1990s, the field of “new imperial history” has taught us the importance of analysing the past dynamics and dialectics of conquered societies in order to understand the terms of the imperial “encounters”. With this in mind, this presentation will focus on the history of Harar on the eve of the imperial occupations, from around 1850 to 1875. How were the city and its surroundings organised politically, socially and economically? What tensions, conflicts and hierarchies existed in these societies? What were people’s beliefs and worldviews – how did they see the world and themselves in it? Based on some of the findings from the first chapters of her PhD dissertation, Héloïse Mercier will attempt to answer some of these questions, as a necessary prelude to rethinking the imperial history of Harar.

View of the city of Harar from the south-west (P. Paulitschke, 1885)