Mapping the Boundaries of Otherness

Abstract

This paper analyses the stranger-host relationship through examples of names, which are taken or asserted by Caribbean Rastafari, and attributed or given to them by Ethiopians. In the late 1950s a Caribbean Rastafari population settled on the outskirts of Shashemene, a southern Ethiopian town. I explain how these settlers, inspired by a popular tradition of Ethiopianism, identify themselves as “real Ethiopians”. I analyse as well the names they claim (Jamaican, Rastafari) and the names given to them by Ethiopians (sadatanna faranjocc, tukkur americawi, balabbat and baria). These names illustrate the changing representations the Ethiopians have of the Caribbeans and the shifting position of the latter in Ethiopian society. The complexities of the diasporic subject “returned home” and those of the national setting are discussed, thus mapping the boundaries of otherness at work. Based on extensive research in Jamaica and Ethiopia, this paper draws on archival, written, and oral sources in English and Amharic.