The State of Status Groups in Ethiopia

Susanne Epple ist Ethnologin. Forschung und Lehre an den Universitäten in Mainz, Addis Ababa, Hamburg und Frankfurt/M. SUSANNE EPPLE has MA and PhD degrees in Social Anthropology from Mainz University. She has done extensive fieldwork on age and gender relations in southern Ethiopia, working among the Bashada since 1994 and the Bayso since 2012. From 2007 to 2015 she was assistant professor at the Department of Social Anthropology, Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. She is currently a researcher at the Frobenius Institute in Frankfurt, Germany, and research affiliate at Arbaminch University, Ethiopia, working on marginalized groups and legal pluralism in southern Ethiopia. Her interests lie in the areas of gender and age in pastoral societies, social discourse and identity, hereditary status groups, cultural and legal pluralism and human rights. HERMANN AMBORN is Professor Emeritus of Social Anthropology at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Munich. He was trained as a welding engineer and received his diploma in 1964 before going on to complete a PhD in Social Anthropology in 1973 and his habilitation in 1987. He lectured in Munich, Hamburg, Berlin, Tübingen and Manhatten (Kansas). For several years, he was the spokesman for the working group on ethics of the German Anthropological Association (DGV). Since 1973, his research has focussed on Ethiopia, Kenya and Indonesia and his publications relate to socio-economics (crafts, agriculture, division of work), socio-religion, polycephalous societies, action research, ethics, identity, oral tradition, conflict solving, law and anarchy. DESALEGN AMSALU has an MA in Cultural Studies and a PhD in Social Anthropology from Addis Ababa University. He was a lecturer at Addis Ababa University from 2008-2016 and has been Assistant Professor of Social Anthropology at the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, since 2016. From 2009 on, he has undertaken several periods of