The Role of Ethnic and Religious Spatialities in The Role of Ethnic and Religious Spatialities in Addis Ababa's Urban Conflict Ababa's Urban Conflicts

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Quantitative research suggests that armed conflicts aremore likely to occur in countries where ethnic and religiousidentities overlap (Basedau et al., 2011). This researchproject probes this finding further through qualitativeinvestigation of current tensions in Ethiopia, where mostAmhara are Christian and most Oromo are Muslim. Sincethe dawn of ethnic federalism in the country, ethnicidentities have been rendered onto territory through theestablishment of ethnic regional states. An understandingof the way that individuals and groups interact with andproduce space, then, is vital in resolving existing ethnic andreligious inter-community tensions. Addis Ababa providesthe backdrop for this research, due to its diversity, high rateof societal change and unique status as ethnicallyundefined within the ethnic federalist system.This research draws from epistemologies of spatiality ingeography to broaden the understanding of space inconflict studies from its current territorial base. HenriLefebvre's (1991) relational theory of space, which definesspace as produced through representation and conception,forms the theoretical framework of this thesis. Researchwill be conducted through literature review, archivalresearch and interviews of individuals living inneighbourhoods experiencing violence, through which willbe observed the negotiation of space in conflict-pronesocieties and the impact of spatiality on ethnic andreligious tensions in urban space.