BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Sabre//Sabre VObject 4.6.0//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/Zurich X-LIC-LOCATION:Europe/Zurich TZURL:http://tzurl.org/zoneinfo/Europe/Zurich BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0200 TZNAME:CEST DTSTART:19810329T020000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=-1SU END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0200 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:CET DTSTART:19961027T030000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=10;BYDAY=-1SU END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT UID:news416@ethnologie.philhist.unibas.ch DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20250815T102855 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20251112T161500 SUMMARY:Black Empire and its Labors: Working With and Against the Rubble in Addis Ababa DESCRIPTION:Famously never colonized by Europeans\, Ethiopia has not only c onstituted a pivotal\, if complex\, imaginary in transatlantic histories o f Blackness but has in turn been informed by them. In describing this tens ion\, I move between three ethnographic\, historical\, and infrastructural spaces: colonial legacies of urban planning\, political visions of Addis Ababa as the renaissance capital city that encompasses the state\, and\, m ore centrally\, young men and women on the economic and social sidelines o f Ethiopia’s capital\, Addis Ababa. Describing urban residents who navig ate\, build and labor amidst rubble\, roadworks\, and ongoing demolitions\ , I argue that their embodied work resists narratives of marginality and s ubmission. Instead\, I propose to think of their labor\, imaginaries\, and the surrounds as "Blackness as infrastructure.” This talk will address how racial configurations in East Africa\, Italian colonial and contempora ry forms of imperialism are not only localized\, but tethered to the circu lation of transatlantic and Indian ocean discourses on slavery\, and indee d global forms of blackness.\\r\\n\\r\\nBio\\r\\nSabine Mohamed is Assista nt Professor of Anthropology at the Johns Hopkins University and currently works on her first book Losing Ground: Emergent Black Empire and Counter- Futures in Urban Ethiopia. Sabine is an urban\, political and economic ant hropologist whose research and writing explores empire-making in the globa l south\, and how urban and port life intersects with gendered histories o f race and blackness in East Africa\, as well as Germany.  X-ALT-DESC:

Famously never colonized by Europeans\, Ethiopia has not only constituted a pivotal\, if complex\, imaginary in transatlantic histories of Blackness but has in turn been informed by them. In describing this te nsion\, I move between three ethnographic\, historical\, and infrastructur al spaces: colonial legacies of urban planning\, political visions of Addi s Ababa as the renaissance capital city that encompasses the state\, and\, more centrally\, young men and women on the economic and social sidelines of Ethiopia’s capital\, Addis Ababa. Describing urban residents who nav igate\, build and labor amidst rubble\, roadworks\, and ongoing demolition s\, I argue that their embodied work resists narratives of marginality and submission. Instead\, I propose to think of their labor\, imaginaries\, a nd the surrounds as "Blackness as infrastructure.” This talk will addres s how racial configurations in East Africa\, Italian colonial and contempo rary forms of imperialism are not only localized\, but tethered to the cir culation of transatlantic and Indian ocean discourses on slavery\, and ind eed global forms of blackness.

\n\n

Bio

\n

Sabi ne Mohamed is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the Johns Hopkins Uni versity and currently works on her first book Losing Ground: Emergent Black Empire and Counter-Futures in Urban Ethiopia. Sabine is an urba n\, political and economic anthropologist whose research and writing explo res empire-making in the global south\, and how urban and port life inters ects with gendered histories of race and blackness in East Africa\, as wel l as Germany. \;

\n\n\n\n DTEND;TZID=Europe/Zurich:20251112T180000 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR