The Ogaden War

Somali women’s roles

Datos Bibliográficos

ID14817166
AutoresRemco Van Hauwermeiren (Ghent University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2012
Volumen25
Número2
Fecha de publicación2012-09-14
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAVRUG-bulletin/Afrika Focus (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0772-0793 • E-ISSN: 0772-084X
EditorialWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.21825/af.v25i2.4944
OpenAlexW2188367523
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas14

In 1977 Somalia invaded Ethiopia hoping to seize the Ogaden, an Ethiopian region predominantly inhabited by ethnic Somali. Histories of this event are rare and focus exclusively on the political and military aspects of the conflict. This is not surprising given the Cold War backdrop of the conflict. This article, however, shifts the focus away from the political towards the personal. Focus here is on the different roles Ogadeni women took up in the Somali-Ethiopian war, also known as the Ogaden war. Through interviews with former actors in the conflict it became clear that women occupied a range of roles in the war, varying from victims or care-givers to active participants in militias and front-line combat. In conflicts today, Somali women still retain many of these roles. Originally some Somalis did oppose this state of affairs, today most seem to have accepted the phenomenon of female actors in the Ogaden war, even though that approval can be linked with a political agenda. Both Ogadeeni and Somali women were active in the war, transcending Somali clan lines along the way. Accounts of the women interviewed illustrate the effects of their choice to participate in the Ogaden war. Key words: Ogaden, Somalia, Ethiopia, gender, women’s history

Clan · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Somali · African history and culture analysis · African studies and sociopolitical issues · Gender Studies · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · History · Law