‘Eating A Country’: The Dynamics of State-Society Encounters in Qellem, Western Ethiopia, 1908–33

Abstract This article examines state-society encounters in imperial Ethiopia through histories of exploitation and compromise. Focusing on the western province Qellem, investigates Ethiopia's engagement with local rights claims over time, illustrating how state was imagined, negotiated, partially legitimated. The inherent incoherence within structures is traced back to survival nodes indigenous power territories conquered late nineteenth century. Peasant representatives, elites, Amhara governors soldier-colonists engaged turn it their benefit, or limit its excesses. Episodes rebellion, withdrawal, court arbitration punctuated a cycle negotiation which role intermediary key. Qellem experienced state-making exercise that contemporaneous with, comparable to, formation European colonial states elsewhere continent. As such, this provides radical challenge dominant historiographical perspectives Ethiopia.