Projekt

The fellowship aims at providing a first in-depth analysis of the social, political and economic factors that have led to the endemic food crisis in Eastern Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti and Northern Somalia. In the nineteenth century, pastoralist communities in this region became incorporated into a unified Red Sea grain market supplied primarily by Egypt and India. Serels' preliminary research demonstrates that the subsequent intensification of long-distance trade in food stuffs limited the economic strategies practiced by various African communities and helped fuel a set of exploitative processes that allowed colonial states and a small group of non-state elites to seize locally managed resources. The loss of these resources negatively impacted the food security of the region and recurring food crises forced many to abandon traditional livelihoods and to seek out work either on large-scale commercial agriculture schemes, in regional cities or in Gulf States.

• Prof. Dr. Ulrike Freitag

  Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO)
  Berlin
  

• Dr. Steven Serels, Ph.D.

  Harvard University
  Faculty of Arts and Sciences
  Weatherhead Initiative on Global History
  Cambridge
  USA