Elleni Centime Zeleke was an Ethiopian-born researcher[1] specialising in Ethiopian political changes in the decades before and after the 1974 Ethiopian Revolution.[2][3] Elleni published a study of the Ethiopian student movement, its influence on the Ethiopian Revolution and later political changes, and the negative consequences of rigidity in claiming "scientific" validity of the social sciences in Ethiopian intellectual circles and institutional structures.[2][3][4] Elleni was assistant professor at Columbia University in New York, United States[1] from 2018 through to her death in 2024.[5][6]
Elleni Zeleke | |
|---|---|
| Died | 2024  |
| Education | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Employer | |
| Website | https://ias.columbia.edu/content/elleni-zeleke |
Childhood and education
editElleni Centime Zeleke was born in Ethiopia. She spent part of her childhood in Toronto, Guyana and Barbados.[7]
Elleni studied at York University in Toronto, Canada,[7] where she obtained her PhD in social and political thought in 2016.[8]
University research and teaching
editElleni was an assistant professor of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies at Columbia University in New York,[1][9] from 2018 to 2024.[5][6]
Book: Ethiopia in Theory
editIn 2019, Elleni published Ethiopia in Theory: Revolution and Knowledge Production, 1964–2016,[10] a book presenting her view of half a century of Ethiopian interrelated intellectual and political developments.[2]
The book describes the Ethiopian student movement literature covering sociological theory and social change prior to the 1974 Ethiopian Revolution, and the student movement's influence in helping to destabilise the Emperor Haile Selassie, leading to the revolution. The book also argues that the student movement was a key factor encouraging resistance to Mengistu Hailemariam of the Derg.[11][3] Ethiopia in Theory continues by discussing the longer term effects of the intellectual debates on the revolution during the following decades.[3] Donald L. Donham describes the book as a philosophical, historical and anthropological study of the effects of what he sees as three main effects of the 1974 revolution: "progressive social measures", "prodigious killing" and the mass departure of Ethiopians into the Ethiopian diaspora.[4] Elleni discusses how Marxism and other ideas of the social sciences were appropriated into Ethiopian and wider African thinking.[11] She studies the role of the diaspora in the revolution and, in Donham's view, "aims [with her book] to reinvigorate revolutionary theory".[4]
Elleni proposed what she calls Tizita, meaning "memory" in Amharic, to describe her approach in the book to analysing the social sciences. Michael Kebede described Tizita as a "corrective" to positivism and the book overall as "a profound, cross-disciplinary meditation on the nature and reverberations of a revolution".[2]
Ethiopia in Theory criticises the development and usage of Ethiopian social sciences. Students' belief in the "scientific truth" of their political approach is seen in the book as both a strong motivator for revolutionary changes, and as a factor enouraging violence against those seen as enemies.[2][3]
Harry Verhoeven describes the book as challenging ideas of "meaningful democratisation of debates around knowledge, authority and indeed liberation ... in an African context". He states that Elleni sees Ethiopian knowledge as being poorly implemented in "academic practice, government policy, civil society activism and the social needs of local communities". She argues that the social sciences should better "be understood as a space that opens up a critical and philosophical dialogue on social reality".[3]
References
edit- ^ a b c Elleni Zeleke, Wikidata Q117769179, archived from the original on 8 January 2023
- ^ a b c d e Michael Kebede (6 April 2021). "Ethiopia in theory: revolution and knowledge production, 1964–2016, by Elleni Centime Zeleke". Review of African Political Economy. 48: 485. doi:10.1080/03056244.2021.1905363. ISSN 0305-6244. Wikidata Q117769167. Archived from the original on 16 April 2023.
- ^ a b c d e f Harry Verhoeven (political scientist) (7 June 2021). "Liberation in theory and in practice: Ethiopia and its political modernities - Laying the Past to Rest by Mulugeta Gebrehiwot Berhe London: Hurst, 2019. Pp. 355. - East Africa after Liberation by Jonathan Fisher Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Pp. 322. - Ethiopia in Theory by Elleni Centime Zeleke Leiden: Brill, 2020. Pp. 281". Journal of Modern African Studies. 59: 239. doi:10.1017/S0022278X21000021. ISSN 0022-278X. Wikidata Q117769206. Archived from the original on 17 June 2021.
- ^ a b c Donald L. Donham (2019), Preface, Wikidata Q117769210, archived from the original on 4 October 2022
- ^ a b In Memoriam, Columbia University, 2024, Wikidata Q127375805, archived from the original on 11 March 2024
- ^ a b In Memoriam, Columbia University, 2024, Wikidata Q127375525, archived from the original on 11 July 2024
- ^ a b Elleni Centime Zeleke, Wikidata Q117769192, archived from the original on 16 April 2023
- ^ Elleni Zeleke (2020), DAAS Africa Workshop with Elleni Zeleke (Columbia), University of Michigan, Wikidata Q117775317, archived from the original on 18 April 2023
- ^ Elleni Zeleke; Safia Aidid; Awet Weldemichael; David Webster (historian, Bishop's University) (29 June 2021). "Canada and the Atrocities in Tigray, Ethiopia: Scholars Respond to Policy Options". African Arguments. Wikidata Q117774976. Archived from the original on 18 April 2023.
- ^ Elleni Zeleke (2019). Ethiopia in Theory: Revolution and Knowledge Production, 1964–2016. Brill Publishers. ISBN 978-90-04-41475-4. Wikidata Q117768677.
- ^ a b Brill presents Ethiopia in Theory by Elleni Centime Zeleke, Columbia University, 15 November 2019, Wikidata Q117769196, archived from the original on 22 December 2022