Fesseha Berhe Gebregergis

Coordonnées : fessehab.mu@gmail.com | fesseha.berhe@uni-erfurt.de

Titre de la thèse : The Dobǝᶜa of Ethiopia : An Ethnohistorical Investigation

Co-direction : Vincent Fourniau (CETOBaC) et Wolbert Smidt (Mekelle University/Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena)

Discipline : Histoire et Civilisations

Fesseha est titulaire d'une licence en histoire et d'une maîtrise en anthropologie sociale et est actuellement doctorante à l'École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS). Il est professeur adjoint au Département d'histoire et de gestion du patrimoine de l'Université de Mekelle et a été chef du département. Sa thèse porte sur un ancien « groupe ethnique » du nord de l'Éthiopie, les Dobǝᶜa, qui ne sont plus aujourd'hui connus comme un groupe distinct, mais qui existent toujours – à l'insu de la plupart des chercheurs – sous la forme de lignées à Rayya et au-delà, qui gardé des souvenirs historiques. Les Dobǝᶜa étaient une population attestée depuis des centaines d'années dans les sources les plus diverses, qui montrent qu'ils ont parfois joué un rôle important dans la politique régionale éthiopienne. C'est pourquoi ils ont été mentionnés à plusieurs reprises dans les travaux scientifiques sur l'histoire éthiopienne, mais aucun chercheur n'a été en mesure de bien saisir leur identité ethnique et leur rôle dans la politique régionale éthiopienne, alors que leur origine et leurs antécédents jouent même un rôle important dans les débats scientifiques modernes, alors que il manque des études détaillées à leur sujet. Son projet de doctorat s'efforce de reconstruire l'histoire du groupe sur la base de méthodes ethno-historiques en utilisant diverses sources telles que des hagiographies, des chroniques royales, des récits de voyage, des manuscrits ajami, des cartes, des traditions orales et des littératures secondaires. Ses recherches donnent un nouveau regard sur l’histoire éthiopienne, qui est généralement racontée du point de vue de l’État central ou du pouvoir central. Ses recherches constituent en quelque sorte une contre-histoire de l’historiographie centriste éthiopienne et montrent la diversité culturelle et les multiples replis de l’histoire éthiopienne.

Fesseha has a BA Degree in History and MA in Social Anthropology and is currently a PhD student at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS). He is an Assistant Professor at the Department of History and Heritage Management, Mekelle University and served as of head of the Department. His dissertation focuses on a former ‘ethnic group’ in northern Ethiopia, the Dobǝᶜa, who are today not known any more as a separate group, but still exist – unknown to most researchers – in the form of lineages in Rayya, and beyond, who kept historical memories. The Dobǝᶜa were a population attested since hundreds of years in most diverse sources, which show that at times they played an important role in Ethiopian regional politics. This is why they have been repeatedly mentioned in scholarly works on Ethiopian history, but never scholars were able to grasp well their ethnic identity and their role in Ethiopian regional politics, while their origin and background plays even an important role in modern scholarly debates, while detail studies on them are missing. His PhD project undertakes the endavour to reconstruct the history of the group based on ethno-historical methods using diverse sources such as hagiographies, royal chronicles, travel accounts, ajami manuscripts, maps, oral traditions, and secondary literatures. His research gives a fresh look at Ethiopian history, which is usually told from the central state or central power perspective. His research is in a way a counter history of the centrist Ethiopian historiography and shows the cultural diversity and the many foldedness of Ethiopian history. 

Thèmes de recherche / Research themes

-    Ethno-histoire/Ethno-history 
-    Histoire des cartes/History of Maps
-    Histoire et patrimoine islamiques de l'Afrique du Nord-Est/Islamic History and Heritage of North-east Africa
-    Histoire de « l’agence locale » dans l’exploration européenne de l’Afrique du Nord-Est/History of the ‘local agency’ in the European Exploration of North-east Africa
-    Migration

Champs / Fields

-    Histoire des Dobǝᶜa, fin XIIIe-XIXe siècles/History of the Dobǝᶜa, late 13th-19th centuries
-    Histoire médiévale et moderne du nord de l'Éthiopie/Medieval and early modern History of Northern Ethiopia

Enseignements / Teaching activities

-    More than fifteen years of teaching experience at Mekelle University.

Publications

Articles in Peer-reviewed Journals

-    “Regional History and Ethno-history: Gerhard Rohlfs and other Germanophone Researchers and a Forgotten Ethnic Group, the Dob’a”, Cultural Research from Germanophone Countries in North-eastern Africa: Stories and Histories, Extra Issue of Ityopis, Northeast African Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, V. 1: 125-135, 2015. 
-    “Youths on Perilous Journeys: Irregular Migrants from Tǝgray to the Gulf Region”, Les Annales d’Ethiopie, 28, 2014. 
-    “Studies on the Biography of Blatta Hayle Mariam Redda (1909-1995)”, IYTOPIS, Northeast Africa Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 1(1): 76-101, 2011.

Book Chapters

-    “The Dobᶜa in Light of Oral Traditions in Eastern and Southern Tǝgray”, Oral Tradition in Ethiopian Studies, Supplement to AETHIOPICA – International Journal of Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies, pp. 163-184, 2018.
-    “On the Oral Traditions of Ḥašängä and its Environs: A Preliminary Field Report”, in Gaudiello, M. and Yule, A. P. (eds), Mifsas Baḥri: a Late Aksumite Frontier Community in the Mountains of Southern Tigray. Survey, Excavation and Analysis, 2013–16, 2017.
-    (With Werner ARNOLD) “Dialect and Agricultural Terminology” in Gaudiello, M. and Yule, A. P. (eds), Mifsas Baḥri”, in Mifsas Baḥri: a Late Aksumite Frontier Community in the Mountains of Southern Tigray. Survey, Excavation and Analysis, 2013–16, 2017. 

Conference Proceedings

-    “Invisible Diversity: Exploring the Dynamics of Saho Settlements in Tǝgray”, Proceedings of the 18th International Conference of Ethiopian Studies: 357-365, 2015. 

Field Research Reports

-    “Preliminary Report Excavations and Surveys: Bilet (Tigray, Ethiopia), 1-20 December 2018. [Research Report]’ Authority of Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage, Addis Ababa”, 2015 (with multiple authors).
-    “Excavations at Mifsas Bahri, Tigray, Ethiopia, Third Preliminary Internal Field Report”, 2015 (with multiple authors).
-    “Field Report for Mifsas Baḥri, Second Preliminary Report”, 2014 (with multiple authors).
-    “Excavations at Mifsas Bahri, Tigray Province, A Study of Ethiopian Heritage First Preliminary Report”, 2013 (with multiple authors).

Formation/ Education

-    2000 – 2003: B.A. Degree in History (Alemaya University, Ethiopia)
-    2004 – 2005: Higher Diploma for teacher Educators (Mekelle University, Ethiopia)
-    2006 – 2008: MA Degree in Social Anthropology (Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia)
-    Since March 2015: PhD Candidate in History (Joint PhD programme or co-tutelle between the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris, France and Mekelle University)

Fellow et chercheuse associée/Fellow and Associate Researcher 

-    April 2016 to August 2016: Herzog-Ernst-Scholarship holder at the Gotha Research Centre, Germany.
-    April-September 2018: Associate researcher at the Gotha Research Centre, Germany under ETHIOMAP project funded by the DFG (Germany) ANR (France). 
-    October to November 2019: Researcher at Asia Africa Institute, Hamburg University as a member of the SLAFNET Project (Slavery in Africa: A Dialogue between Europe and Africa), funded by the European Union and coordinated by the IRD.
-    Since September 2022: Gerda Henkel Foundation Fellow at Forschungskolleg Transkulturelle Studien / Perthes Collection, Gotha, Germany.