When the Subaltern Writes: Post-Socialist Ethiopia through the Gaze of a Shele (“Call Girl”)

On the ALA YouTube Channel

The 2000s in Ethiopia are marked by a substantial publication of Amharic literature on the thriving sex economy in Addis Ababa. Some are written by men as commentaries integrated into a general observation of how city life has changed; others are produced by women themselves, giving intimate details of their encounters with men. In this talk, I do a close reading of one such book entitled Roza, authored by the eponymous protagonist who describes herself as a “college-educated shele”. Published in 2014,  Roza contains twenty-nine short entries, most of which focus on her engagement with national and international customers.

Some entries critique the socio-economic contradictions of post-socialist Ethiopia where, for example, the country witnesses a massive expansion of universities while not offering meaningful employment prospects due to neoliberal economic policies. In other entries, Roza gazes at her international clients, revealing deep-rooted local and global racial stereotypes that reinforce racist biases and ultimately position the white male client as the standard by which others are judged. My talk concludes with foregrounding her as a critic whose position affords her an angle of seeing and articulating a critique of social, economic, and political contradictions characteristic of the country as well as the world at large.

Serawit Debele is a Junior Research Group Leader at the Africa-Multiple Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bayreuth.  Her work focuses on moments of socio-political change in Africa, asking what possibilities these moments might open up for non-normative sexualities and genders. Her ongoing project focuses on Ethiopia, Tunisia and Sudan. She is the author of the book Locating Politics in Ethiopia’s Irreecha Ritual, which was a finalist for the Albert J. Raboteau book prize for best book in African Religions. She is currently working on her second book on sex in post-socialist Ethiopia and the politics of sexual freedom. Together with Stephanie Laemmert, she is the editor of the book Black(ness) in German African Studies. Her articles have appeared on journals such as History of the Present, The Journal of African History, African Identities, Journal of African Cultural Studies and African Studies.