Oscillating Imaginaries: War, Peace, and the Precarious Relations between Eritrea and Ethiopia
In: Modern Africa: politics, history and society, Volume 10, Issue 1, p. 33-60
ISSN: 2570-7558
While the 2018 peace declaration between Ethiopia and Eritrea was widely celebrated, Eritrean refugees expressed concern that peace would be destabilising, and their status in Ethiopia would change. Their concerns were shaped by a long history of oscillating imaginaries of how Eritrea "fits" with Ethiopia. Drawing from historical analysis and ethnographic fieldwork leading up to the peace agreement, we explore how these oscillating imaginaries create an uncomfortable and unstable situation for Eritreans in Ethiopia, rendering refugees vulnerable to unpredictable violence. Better understanding the way identity categories have been subject to constant slippage and have been instrumentalised by political elites could help to forge a more peaceful future among Ethiopia's nationalities and between Ethiopia and Eritrea.