Sale - 35% off all Film Studies titles Transformations of Hierarchies in Western Ethiopia: Negotiating Mao Identity and Ethnicity in Everyday Life | BERGHAHN BOOKS
Join our Email List Berghahn Books Logo

berghahn New York · Oxford
Browse Books
Transformations of Hierarchies in Western Ethiopia: Negotiating Mao Identity and Ethnicity in Everyday Life

Series
Volume 4

African Worlds: New Interdisciplinary Perspectives



See Related
Anthropology Journals

Email Newsletters

Sign up for our email newsletters to get customized updates on new Berghahn publications.

Click here to select your preferences

Transformations of Hierarchies in Western Ethiopia

Negotiating Mao Identity and Ethnicity in Everyday Life

Sophie Küspert-Rakotondrainy

296 pages, 17 figs

ISBN  978-1-80768-045-9 $135.00/£104.00 / Hb / Not Yet Published (January 2027)

eISBN 978-1-80768-047-3 eBook


View CartYour country: - edit Recommend to your LibraryAvailable in GOBI®

Reviews

This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the lived realities of the Mao community against a backdrop of intricate ethnohistorical processes. It nicely demonstrates that Mao identity is not a fixed or purely ethnic category, but rather a social category constantly shaped by political transformations and internal hierarchies. Shauna LaTosky, University of British Columbia

Description

Officially recognised as an ethnic group, the Mao identity carries complex, sometimes contradictory meanings, from stigma to prestige. For some individuals, Mao signals descent from enslaved people; for others, non-slave ancestry. Examining the historical and political transformations of the Mao social identity in Western Ethiopia, the book challenges the assumption that ethnicity determines social position. It shows how local hierarchies shape the meaning and impact of social identities. Drawing on rich empirical data, it explores how Mao groups negotiate identity through politics, marriage and labour, and how these interpretations have interacted with regional and national changes over the past fifty years.

Sophie Küspert-Rakotondrainy currently serves as Head of the Education Department in a city administration near Stuttgart, Germany. Her doctoral research was awarded the Bradbury Memorial Prize. She has published extensively on contested ethnic identities, language endangerment, language policy and social identity, and the lasting stigma of slavery in western Ethiopia.

Subject: Anthropology (General)SociologyDevelopment Studies
Area: Africa


Library Recommendation Form

Dear Librarian,

I would like to recommend Transformations of Hierarchies in Western Ethiopia Negotiating Mao Identity and Ethnicity in Everyday Life for the library. Please include it in your next purchasing review with my strong recommendation. The RRP is: $135.00

I recommend this title for the following reasons:

BENEFIT FOR THE LIBRARY: This book will be a valuable addition to the library's collection.

REFERENCE: I will refer to this book for my research/teaching work.

STUDENT REFERRAL: I will regularly refer my students to the book to assist their studies.

OWN AFFILIATION: I am an editor/contributor to this book or another book in the Series (where applicable) and/or on the Editorial Board of the Series, of which this volume is part.