Awura-Amba: Zumras Dream Land

Filmmaker:  Tigist Kebede Feyissa

Year of production: 2010
Location: Amhara, Ethiopia
Duration: 35 minutes.
Sound: mono
Language:
English Subtitles

Amhara region. It is about 400 people strong. The community has emerged as one group with its own distinct identity marks such as work ethics, gender ideology and religion, in which the group has reconstructed. Besides, it is a community where members work together and share equally what they have got at the end of the year.

The leader and the founder of the community is Zumra Nuru. Awura-Amba was his childhood dream. The life philosophy and life style of the Awura-Amba community is depicted in the film entitled ‘Awura-Amba, Zumra’s dream land’.  Specifically, it catches the life of Tirusew and her family in the community. What does it mean by Awura-Amban? How the days are divided in this village? Who is Zumra Nuru? These and also other questions are going to be answered in the film.

In a nutshell, the film narrates the previous social status of Awura-Amba as marginalized group and now as a model.

Copyright: 2010 Visual Cultural Studies, University of Tromsø

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ABSTRACT This study deals with conflicts among pastoralists in the Borana area of Southern Ethiopia focusing on the case of the Borana and Garri peoples. The objective of the research is to assess the underlying factors related to the formation, development and transformation of conflicts between the Borana and Garri since 1990´s. To meet this objective, the study employs a qualitative approach and secondary sources. As a conceptual framework for the analysis, the study uses intergroup conflict. This study makes use of ethnicity; ethnic conflict and political ethnicity as a main analytical tool to study intergroup conflict and violence that emerge in a state, especially in this research context, where ethnicity constitutionally has become essential in creating a federal state and administrative units. The study has reviewed and analyzed the macro historical and political trends in Ethiopia in relation to conflicts between different pastoralist communities. It also addresses the conflict since the 1990s between the two groups drawing lines of connection between the national discourse on ethnicity and local realities. Thus, it is argued that the violent conflicts in pastoral areas result from a myriad of historical, political and economic factors that reinforce one another. It is further argued that the pastoralist conflicts- if not all- particularly in the post 1991 period is also linked to questions of land ownership and self government, as the new state’s constitution equated ethnic groups with administration units. This thesis calls for the development and implementation of integrated policies and strengthening local governance institutions that are rooted in traditional practices for managing resources and inter-ethnic conflicts.

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