Muslim Protests in Ethiopia

The purpose of my fieldwork in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia was to interview people and collect relevant data sources on the recent surge of Muslim protests in the country. While I was in Ethiopia I was able to collect data on the location and severity of the protests from news reports and television. I am using the data I collected and combining it with the ACLED data to form a comprehensive dataset of where the protests occurred so that I may complete quantitative analysis. In talking about my ideas and fieldwork on the subject matter, a collaboration formed between myself and a professor at a neighboring university. We have now decided to work on this project together to uncover how the Muslim protests compare with other protests in the country (student led, ethnic based, etc), why some protests turned deadly while others remained non-violent, and also, what the drivers and ethnic composition of the protests were. We also aim to uncover why the spatial distribution of the protests were concentrated in specific localities, and finally, why the protests did not occur in some cities with historically large populations of Muslims (Dire Dawa, Harar, Robe-Goba, etc). The exploratory fieldwork I did in the country allowed me to briefly explore some of these questions, but I aim to engage in these topics more in depth in the coming months to find answers.

My interviews were also extremely informative as they provided me with an in depth understanding of the symbolic meaning this movement meant to all those it affected, above and beyond what observational data could tell me. Due to the fact that ethnicity is the primary and most salient identity of individuals in Ethiopia, it was surprising that people were able to mobilize and protest under a collective and united Muslim identity-void of any ethnic tensions. Even more so, given the “harmonious” nature of Christian-Muslim relationships in the country, it is also interesting that Muslims wanted to protest in the first place. These protest not only symbolize the disenfranchisement and marginalization of the Muslim community in Ethiopia, it also makes academics revisit and revise the “tolerant” and “complacent” Christian-Muslim relations we have have claimed there to be for so long. In my interviews many people wanted to claim that the Muslim protests were isolated incidents that did not represent the relationship between the religions in general, nor the majority of Muslims feelings specifically, because of this it was difficult to get a lot of people to be open and honest about religious relations in the country. By far this was the most difficult part of my trip-interviewing people who depicted Ethiopia as a religious Utopia, but with the resources I had from the Abbasi center I was able to meet with people multiple times in order to have them open up about their experiences.

This grant has allowed me to gain the skills necessary to not only build my quantitative and qualitative skills in the field, but also growth in the interpersonal skills I need to conduct fieldwork in developing countries. I was confronted with different personalities and working styles of people from vast walks of life. Not having to worry about funding allowed me to not only have conversations with these people, but also to engage with these people multiple times in order to build working relationships. In this sense this also contributed to my professional development. These skills will be transferable to my future field work abroad and the connections I was able to make in the country will also aid me in my future research.