La parola e il testo. Fonti per la storia dell'Etiopia-Eritrea, sec. XIX-XX

Abstract

There is a great number of written sources concerning 19th and 20th century African history available to historians. Word and text in colonial Eritrea and in 20th century Ethiopia and their interrelation offer a research theme that suggests many new reflections. Recently, my understanding of this issue and my methodological approach have been challenged by an integrated fieldwork in the area and have been connected to a further historiographical development. In my previous work I rose the question of the interrelation between the word and the text as the means of knowledge transmission. My interest goes now towards a new narrative discourse that reconfirms the nature of “African independent state” and the importance of reconstructing its memory. I propose to scholars an alternative understanding of memories and texts, in the light of a re- reading of sources. Africans reproduce different narratives and react to colonialism by the means of colonialism itself.