Agents of War, Agents of Change: A Revised History of Female Combatants in the TPLF

本项目分析了1974年至1991年内战期间埃塞俄比亚提格雷人民解放阵线（TPLF）武装叛乱中妇女的参与程度及其冲突后经历。在此过程中，它将评估埃塞俄比亚和更广泛的东非冲突和叛乱的性别性质。这将首次对TPFL中的妇女进行重要的历史分析，并将对了解妇女在非洲冲突和埃塞俄比亚社会以及冲突后重建中的作用作出实质性贡献。官方历史和现有的学术分析已经边缘化或忽视了妇女在埃塞俄比亚内战中的参与，就像在许多其他战争中一样，低估了它作为一个关键特征的影响，它影响了我们对民粹主义参与社会和政治暴力的理解。目前的估计表明，提格雷妇女在TPFL的人数中占相当大的一部分——到1982年，她们占TPLF士兵的25-30%——但她们对该运动的成功和对其意识形态目标的承诺的贡献迄今为止被忽视了。该博士项目将档案和口述历史研究与冲突的跨学科性别分析相结合，以恢复提格雷女战士的声音和分析她们的经历，为围绕埃塞俄比亚妇女在国家和社会形成中的作用进行更广泛的讨论做出贡献。

This project analyses the extent of women's involvement in the armed insurgency of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) in Ethiopia during the civil war between 1974 and 1991 and their post-conflict experiences. In doing so, it will assess the gendered nature of conflict and insurgency in Ethiopia, and Eastern Africa more broadly. This would deliver the first major historical analysis of women in the TPFL and would make a substantive contribution to knowledge of women's roles in African conflict and in Ethiopian society and post-conflict reconstruction. Official histories and existing academic analysis has marginalized or ignored women's involvement in Ethiopia's civil conflict, as in many other wars, underestimating its impact as a key feature which affects our understanding about populist engagement in social and political violence. Current estimates suggest that Tigrayan women made up a substantial part of the TPFL numbers - they formed 25-30% of TPLF soldiers by 1982 - but their contribution to the movement's success and commitment to its ideological goals have so far been overlooked. This doctoral project will combine archival and oral history research with an interdisciplinary gendered analysis of the conflict to recover the voices and analyse the experiences of Tigrayan female combatants, contributing to wider discussions surrounding Ethiopian women's role in the formation of their state and society.