Powerful mothers – radical daughters

Tales about and cases of women's agency among the Arbore of southern Ethiopia

Abstract

The Arbore, also called the Hor, are a Cushitic agro-pastoral group of around 6,000 people living in the Rift Valley north of Lake Stephanie close to the Kenyan border in southwestern Ethiopia. Building on efforts to correct, often male-biased, stereotypical views on women in agro-pastoralists societies I present two tales and three cases from Arbore to shed light on women's particular interpretations of social categories such as patrilineage and patriarchy. While depicting arenas and examples of women's and and girls' agency my approach stresses the complementarity of male and female roles to state that androcentric perspectives must not be replaced by gynocentrism, but that male and female roles deserve a balanced approach.