RAI RESEARCH SEMINAR
SEMINAR SERIES AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE
Afar ethnography & its future: Glynn Flood’s ethnographic estate
Prof Gill Shepherd (Chair), Dr Maknun Ashami, Michèle Flood, Jean Lydall, and Till Trojer
Wednesday 5 June at 5.30 pm
To the mark the publication: In Pursuit of Afar Nomads. Glynn Flood’s Work Journal and Letters From the Field, 1973 – 1975 [edited by Maknun Ashami, Jean Lydall and Michèle Flood]. Max Planck Institute: Halle. Permalink http://www.eth.mpg.de/pubs/series_fieldnotes/vol0021.html
Forty-four years after his death at the hands of the military government of Ethiopia, Glynn Flood’s ethnographic estate, based on fieldwork among Afar pastoralists, is now available in a publication (also online) of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale. Michèle Flood provided her husband’s ethnographic material, while Jean Lydall and Maknun Ashami compiled the book of Flood’s journals and letters, with a CD of indexed scans of the original journals, letters, and field notes. We will discuss the significance of Flood’s material for teaching and research that deal with fieldwork method, pastoralism, expropriation of land, development, Afar ethnography and history. An exhibition of Flood’s photographs will accompany the seminar.
See also: Flood, Glynn. ‘Nomadism & Its Future: The ‘Afar’, RAIN, No. 6 (Jan. – Feb., 1975), pp. 5–9. Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. (Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3032147)
Lewis, Ioan. ‘Obituary’. RAIN, No. 11, p. 6 (available on-line: http://www.therai.org.uk/archives-and-manuscripts/obituaries/glynn-flood)
Gill Shepherd was a contemporary of Glyn Flood in the LSE Anthropology Department, conducting her PhD among Muslims on the East African coast while he worked in Ethiopia. Her subsequent career was spent working on socio- economic aspects of tropical forests and environment, mainly at the Overseas Development Institute in London. She is currently a Visiting Professor in the Anthropology Department at the LSE.
Maknun Ashami gained a PhD in social and political sciences from the University of Cambridge with a dissertation on ‘The political economy of the Afar Region of Ethiopia’; he teaches at Birkbeck College, London.
Michèle Flood, the widow of Glynn Flood, became an instructor of aviation English teachers, Toulouse.
Jean Lydall (Dipl Soc Anth) studied anthropology at the LSE; she did and continues to do research and make films in Hamar, Southern Ethiopia.
Till Trojer (MA) is a PhD student at SOAS; he has done fieldwork among the Afar salt traders.
This event is free, but tickets must be booked. To book tickets please go to https://glynnflood.eventbrite.co.uk
Location : Royal Anthropological Institute
50 Fitzroy Street
London
W1T 5BT
United Kingdom
http://www.therai.org.uk
