Jamaicans in Ethiopia

Total population
1000+
Regions with significant populations
Shashamane * Addis Ababa
Languages
Amharic, and other Languages of Ethiopia, English
Religion
Rastafari · Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo
Related ethnic groups
Jamaican diaspora

Jamaican Ethiopians comprise Jamaican emigrants and expatriates residing in Ethiopia.

Migration history

The settlement in Shashamane traces its roots to the 1948 Shashamane Land Grant by Emperor Haile Selassie I to members of the Ethiopian World Federation in gratitude for their defence of Ethiopia during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. Most of the initial settlers who took advantage of this offer were African American, but Jamaicans began coming in the 1960s.^[1] They quickly came to form a notable presence in the Shashamane settlement, earning it the nickname "Little Jamaica".^[2]

By 2001, roughly 200 families of Rastafarians lived at Shashamane.^[3] However, a 2011 fact-finding mission by Steven Golding of the Universal Negro Improvement Association's Kingston branch discovered that there has been ongoing confusion over land title among later migrants, particularly because Ethiopian policy no longer permits the alienation of land to foreign citizens.^[4] Furthermore, as Ethiopian nationality law does not incorporate the concept of jus soli, the children of Jamaicans living in Ethiopia are not citizens of the country and cannot access certain public services reserved for citizens. The Jamaican diaspora in Ethiopia have pressed the Jamaican government to establish an embassy in Addis Ababa in order to represent their concerns more effectively to the Ethiopian government; as of 2010, Jamaica was represented in Ethiopia solely by an honorary consul.^[5] In 2017, the Rastafarian community were granted identification cards and resident status by the government, although officials were quick to stress that this action did not amount to granting them citizenship.^[6]

See also

• Rastafari movement

References

Further reading

• Gomes, Shelene (2011), The social reproduction of Jamaica Safar in Shashamane, Ethiopia (Thesis), Ph.D. Dissertation, University of St Andrews, hdl:10023/2548
• Gomes, Shelene (2010), "Sites of Belonging: Caribbean and African Diasporas in Ethiopia" (PDF), in De Pretto, Laura; Macri, Gloria; Wong, Catherine (eds.), Diasporas, Rediscovering and Visiting, Inter-Disciplinary Press, ISBN 978-1-84888-019-1, retrieved 2013-03-11
• Homiak, John (1994), "Rastafari Voices Reach Ethiopia", American Anthropologist, 96 (4): 958–963, doi:10.1525/aa.1994.96.4.02a00150

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