Oromo Women in the Afterlives of Empire: Imperial Spatializing and Geography Guraacha

The Oromo struggle for liberation transcends spatiotemporalities of imperialism, moves across and despite borders, and echoes with deep knowledges, even as the encroaching violence is vast and intersecting, labyrinthian in its structural forms. Oromo women struggle against global anti-Blackness as members of the African diaspora, anti-Indigeneity by the settler colonial state rulers of Ethiopia, and cisheteropatriarchy with uniquely Oromo applications. This thesis disrupts and fights narratives of domination, insisting on listening to Oromo women's stories of refusal and revitalization with a focus on spatiality; the ways that intersecting structural forms present certain positions for people in place.The thesis is positioned at the intersection of Black Studies and Critical Indigenous Studies and links the discussion to three key concepts:: Black geography, imperial spatializing, and geography guraacha. Guraacha, black in the Oromo epistemology, is beyond the skies, representing futures and pasts that are unknown and unseen. Taking black to mean that which exists outside of the capability of traditional maps, as well as Black in the racialized African diasporic community, Black geography and geography guraacha prioritize Oromo liberation and thinking outside of the colonial now. The thesis begins with a re-reading of historical narratives, moves to analyses of the Oromo archive and its meanings, discursive analysis of poetry and music, and closes with ethnographic explorations with Oromo diaspora communities in Europe. These findings reveal the need for rethinking the meanings of space- making as an artefact of imperialism with economic, political, and sociocultural implications. This thesis offers a contribution to methodological and critical theory by strengthening the connection between Indigenous epistemologies and Black geographies as practices of liberation. The resulting argument makes a case for radically reconsidering practices of building a more just and livable world.