Qeerransoo Biyyaa, host of Oromo Press Radio (OPR), spoke to Bonnie Holcomb, the founding mother of Oromo Studies Association and co-author with Sesai Ibsa of Invention of Ethiopia: The Making of Dependent Colonial State in Northeast Africa about the line-up of events leading up to and during the ASA conference. From the feature interview OPR conducted with Qabbanee, two Oromo Studies panels and several individual presentation slots have been secured at ASA.
A panel on the history and achievement of the Oromo Diaspora rightly identified as, "Past and Present Oromo Diasporas: Experiences, Identities and Achievements," will be chaired by a renowned Oromo Sociologist Professor Mekuria Bulcha. Sandy Shell will fly in from the University of Capetown in South Africa in time to present a doctoral research on liberated Oromo slaves in South Africa under this panel. The title of Sandy's work is The Oromo Children of Lovedale, South Africa: A Prosopography of African Slavery and its After-Effects.
Many in the Oromo diaspora and Oromia know Sandy Shell for authoring a popular article titled, "How an Ethiopian [Oromian] slave became a South African teacher" for BBC-Africa. This article has not only been shared thousands of times online, but it also generated immense interest from the Oromo as well as from Oromo rivals who wished to suppress the story. Our sources say Abyssinians tried to discourage Sandy by heckling her and sending vitriolic messages to her employers. Far beyond the BBC article, she wrote a doctoral dissertation by investigating the details of the subject noted above.
An Oromo Studies Association-sponsored workshop will be conducted to honor and introduce Sandy Shell and her much anticipated work to the Oromo Community residing in Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia. Veteran OSA scholars Mekuria Bulcha and Guluma Gemeda will join Sandy at at the pre-ASA meeting workshop in Washington DC. If you can't have enough of Sandy Shell, a 30-persons RSVP-based event that exclusively features Sandy Shell is going to be held at Georgetown University in Washington DC on November 19 from 11-12:30pm prior to the workshop and the ASA conference. Try to make it by all means. If she comes all the way from the South Africa, you can surely make a short metro trip on one of DC's colored lines.
Asebe Regassa, a new Oromo Studies face and an independent researcher from Germany, will also be speaking at the ASA conference on the topic of land grabbing in Oromia. Mardaasaa Addisu, a veteran advocate for Oromo refugee rights is expected to speak on the devastation of environment in Oromia as the leading cause of of Oromo migration or exodus out of the land of repression.
Review excerpts from ASA schedule below to see the panels, topics and panelists representing the Oromo nation and the Horn of Africa at the 56th convention of the African Studies Association.
The Oromo Studies Panels at African Studies
1) Past and Present Oromo Diasporas: Experiences, Identities and Achievements
Chair: Mekuria Bulcha, Malardalen UniversityOromo Diaspora Institutions in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area: A Glimpse into a Transnational Sociocultural Field Zakia Posey, Michigan State UniversityDiasporic Contributions to the Development of Oromo Studies Mekuria Bulcha, Malardalen UniversityThe Oromo Children of Lovedale, South Africa: A Prosopography of African Slavery and its After-Effects Sandy Shell, University of Cape Town (UCT)The Significance of the Oromo Diaspora in Europe for the Beginning of Oromo Studies in the 1840s Guluma Gemeda, University of Michigan-Flint
2) Oromo On and Off the Land
Chair: Bonnie Holcomb, The George Washington University
Competing Notions of Nature: The Guji Oromo Ecological Wisdom and its Encounter with State Conservation Discourse, Asebe Regassa, IndependentEnvironmental Destruction in Ethiopia: A Leading Factor in Oromo Migration Mardaasa Addisu, Macha Tulama Cooperative and Development, USALand and Environment: The Oromo in the Horn of Africa Daniel Ayana, Youngstown State UniversityOromo Religion and Ecology Bonnie Holcomb, The George Washington UniversityDiscussants: Ezekiel Gebissa, Kettering University
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