Book Launch: Revolutionary Struggles and Girls’ Education

Thera Mjaaland’s “Revolutionary Struggles and Girls’ Education: At the Frontiers of Gender Norms in North-Ethiopia” present the gender norms that do not necessarily change even though women participate in liberation struggles and girls get access to education.

The book sees this issue in relation to prevailing neoliberal development discourse where gender equality is understood as parity between girls and boys, women and men, and does not touch upon deep-rooted and hard-lived relations of power in the case of gender and sexuality. Based on the central role that education has gained in the forwarding of development, this work also asks how exactly education can change anything when based on rote learning/memorization and does not encourage critical thinking.

Given the current political developments in Ethiopia, this anthropological monograph has also (unintendedly) become an historical document about what is now being lost in the ongoing civil war in Tigray.

To read more about the book or purchase a copy please visit Rowman & Littlefield.

Join us for the “Revolutionary Struggles and Girls’ Education” book launch!

About the author

Thera Mjaaland is a art photographer, social anthropologist and filmmaker. She is currently a researcher at the department of social anthropology at Addis Ababa University and adjunct associate professor at the Institute for Environment, Gender, and Development at Mekelle University. She is also an independent researcher and filmmaker affiliated to FaFo, Norway.

Participants:

• Thera Mjaaland
• Haldis Haukanes (moderator), University of Bergen
• Elaine Unterhalter, University Collage London
• Vibeke Vågenes, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences
• Mulu Beyene Kidanemariam, University of Bergen

This will be a physical event that will also be streamed online. The event will take place at Bergen Global. If you wish to follow the event digitally, please follow this Zoom link.