Reading prayers as political texts: reflections on Irreecha ritual in Ethiopia

On the occasion of religious rituals which mobilise large number of participants, people get together to pray about their socio-political and economic circumstances and concerns. The main preoccupation of this article is analysing prayers said in such contexts. In the act of praying, it is argued that people appropriate religious vocabularies to convey messages in which structures of power and political actors are implicated. As such, focusing on the contents of collective prayers sheds light on our understanding of how subjects make sense of political processes that affect their everyday lives. As will be shown, what makes the linkage between prayers and political subjectivities more interesting is the political context that necessitates the emergence of prayers as sites of political pronouncement. In authoritarian landscapes where explicit political engagement of any sort is made close to impossible, religious rituals, festivals and similar processions serve as alternative sites. In these events, collective prayers constitute a significant part of mediating political thoughts and aspirations. By reading prayers generated from ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Ethiopia, I will demonstrate that they are political texts deployed by religiously embodied political subjects

Waiting as a site of subject formation: examining collective prayers by Ethiopian asylum seekers in Germany. L’attente en tant que site de formation sur le sujet : étude des prièrescollectives par les demandeurs d’asile éthiopiens en Allemagne

In this article I look at collective payers by Ethiopian asylum seekers to explore how religious narratives are mobilized to deal with temporal angst in the context of waiting. I posit that waiting is a site of multifaceted struggles in which subjectivities are constituted, in response to both the violence waiting imposes and the anticipated freedom it carries with it. Asylum seekers confront life in waiting in various ways until they attain what they wait for and ‘settle’ in the host country. To settle is imagined as living in Europe as independent and self-reliant workers who could generate their own income which is contingent on waiting for the acceptance of their applications for asylum. Whether people attain what they wait for or not, their subjectivities are formed through a certain idea of themselves, an understanding of their situation and their practices, all of which are located within histories and structures of power relations. My analysis draws on ethnographic data generated from fieldwork conducted in 2016–2017 among Oromo asylum seekers in the city of Nuremberg, Germany. Dans cet article je regarde les prières collectives des demandeurs d’asile éthiopiens pour explorer en quoi les récits religieux sont mobilisés pour traiter l’angoisse temporelle dans le contexte de l’attente. J’avance que l’attente est un lieu de luttes à multiples facettes dans lesquelles les subjectivités sont constituées, en réponse aussi bien à la violence imposée par l’attente et l’anticipation de liberté qu’elle apporte. Les demandeurs d’asile font face à la vie en attendant de différentes façons jusqu’à ce qu’ils atteignent ce qu’ils attendent et ‘s’installent’ dans le pays d’accueil. L’installation est imaginé comme vivre en Europe en tant que travailleur indépendant et autonome pouvant générer leur propre revenu ce qui dépend de l’attente pour l’acceptation de leurs demandes d’asile. Que les personnes obtiennent ou non ce pour quoi elles attendant, leurs subjectivités sont formées à travers une certaine idée qu’elles ont d’elles-mêmes, la compréhension qu’elles ont de leur situation et de leurs pratiques, choses qui se situent toutes au cœur d’histoires et de structures de relations de pouvoir. Mon analyse s’appuie sur des données ethnographiques générées par un travail sur le terrain mené en 2016–2017 parmi les demandeurs d’asile Oromo dans la ville de Nuremberg, en Allemagne

Effect of Temperature on Morphological, Structural and Optical Properties of Cadmium Selenide (CdSe) Thin Films Deposited by Chemical Bath Deposition Method.

In this work CdSe thin films were successfully deposited on glass substrates by using tartaric acid as complexing agents, sodium selenosulphite as source of Se2- and cadmium acetate as sources of Cd2+ in basic medium. The thin films of the binary compound CdSe were also deposited at various temperature ranges and the effects of these deposition temperatures on the properties of the thin films were investigated. The as-deposited CdSe thin films were characterized by X-Ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive x-ray (EDX) and optical absorption spectroscopy. The XRD studies showed that all the CdSe samples had cubic crystal structure with space group F-43m. This is the XRD pattern of CdSe thin films at different deposition temperature. The diffracted peaks are indexed as the (111), (220) and (311) planes which are coincided with 26.001, 42.985 and 49.848 angle 2θ. XRD results showed that as the deposition temperature increased three peaks were appeared. This may be attributed with the enhancement of the crystal size with temperature. It is also noticed that the preferred orientation of the crystal was along the (111) plane for the two samples. The crystalline size of the CdSe thin films increases as the bath temperature increase. Conversely the interplanar distance between the lattice points were decreased.  The SEM and EDX investigations revealed that, the CdSe thin films deposited at 60 0C and 80 0C were free from cracks and the deposited films were composed of the desired elements. The band gaps of the films were 1.78 eV, 1.75 eV and 1.70 eV for the deposition temperatures 60 0C, 70 0C and 80 0C respectively. Keywords: Cadmium Selenide (CdSe), thin fil

Effect of Temperature on Morphological, Structural and Optical Properties of Cadmium Selenide (CdSe) Thin Films Deposited by Chemical Bath Deposition Method

In this work CdSe thin films were successfully deposited on glass substrates by using tartaric acid as complexing agents, sodium selenosulphite as source of Se2- and cadmium acetate as sources of Cd2+ in basic medium. The thin films of the binary compound CdSe were also deposited at various temperature ranges and the effects of these deposition temperatures on the properties of the thin films were investigated. The as-deposited CdSe thin films were characterized by X-Ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive x-ray (EDX) and optical absorption spectroscopy. The XRD studies showed that all the CdSe samples had cubic crystal structure with space group F-43m. This is the XRD pattern of CdSe thin films at different deposition temperature. The diffracted peaks are indexed as the (111), (220) and (311) planes which are coincided with 26.001, 42.985 and 49.848 angle 2θ. XRD results showed that as the deposition temperature increased three peaks were appeared. This may be attributed with the enhancement of the crystal size with temperature. It is also noticed that the preferred orientation of the crystal was along the (111) plane for the two samples. The crystalline size of the CdSe thin films increases as the bath temperature increase. Conversely the interplanar distance between the lattice points were decreased.  The SEM and EDX investigations revealed that, the CdSe thin films deposited at 60 0C and 80 0C were free from cracks and the deposited films were composed of the desired elements. The band gaps of the films were 1.78 eV, 1.75 eV and 1.70 eV for the deposition temperatures 60 0C, 70 0C and 80 0C respectively. Keywords: Cadmium Selenide (CdSe), thin fil

Review on the Role of Integrated Soil Fertility Management in Improving Maize Production in Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, the bulk of maize has been produced in humid and mid-altitude agro-ecologies and cultivated continuously on the same piece of land and resulting nutrient depleted soils. To avert low soil fertility problems in the country, commercial fertilizers have been relied to boost the productivity of maize in continuous production system. However, escalating costs of inorganic fertilizers may not encourage the smallholder farmers to use the full dose of fertilizers recommended for their crops. It is thus, to look for another alternative that reduce the cost of production while increasing the productivity of soils. Integrated soil fertility management has been proven to harmonize the current need of smallholder farmers and to produce maize using low input fertilizers from organic sources such as farmyard manure, green manures, compost and also crop rotations. Therefore, several research attempts have been made to optimize the integrated uses of inorganic and organic fertilizers at different locations. At Bako maize rotated with nug and at Jimma maize following soybean reduced the recommended fertilizer rates by 50%. Yearly application of 4 ton FYM ha-1 with 46/10 kg NP ha-1gave maize yield comparable to 110/20 kg NP ha-1 and use of compost also had similar trends at Bako. Uses of legumes such as mucuna and Dolichos lablab at Bako and crotalaria, sesbania and mucuna at Jimma as short fallows and green manures enhanced soil fertility and confirmed to replace either partially or fully the N-fertilizer requirement of maize from external sources. Research reports on integration of crop residues with NP fertilizers at Haramaya and coffee by products integrated with N-fertilizer at Areka could enhance soil fertility and made maize production trends sustainable in Ethiopia. The literatures insights on integrated soil fertility management options for maize production in Ethiopia were reviewed in this paper. Keywords: Soil Fertility, Organic Fertilizers, Inorganic Fertilizers, Maize, Yiel

Religion and politics in post-1991 Ethiopia: making sense of Bryan S. Turner’s ‘Managing Religions’

In this article, I present visions of political unity as imagined by Faith of Unity from Uganda and the Waqqeeffana Followers Association from Ethiopia. I describe how politics is mobilized through notions of disunity and unity. The organizations’ critique of politics is artic-ulated using the vocabulary of religion, which is central to political dis/unity. Drawing on ethnographic data generated from Ethiopia and Uganda, I show that indigenous religions are, in their own right, spaces for the production of political thought attuned to the time and context of their existence. Their engagement expands the domains of the “political” from its usual confines—for instance, civil society asso-ciations, parties, NGOs, and states. Paying attention to such spaces uncovers more sites in which political subjectivities are formed, shaped, and reshaped

Review on the Role of Integrated Soil Fertility Management in Improving Maize Production in Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, bulk of maize has been produced in humid and mid-altitude agro-ecologies and cultivated continuously on the same piece of land and resulting nutrient depleted soils. To avert low soil fertility problems in the country, commercial fertilizers have been relied to boost the productivity of maize in continuous production system. However, escalating costs of inorganic fertilizers may not encourage the smallholder farmers to use the full dose of fertilizers recommended for their crops. It is thus, to look for another alternative that reduce the cost of production while increasing the productivity of soils. Integrated soil fertility management has been proven to harmonize the current need of smallholder farmers and to produce maize using low input fertilizers from organic sources such as farmyard manure, green manures, compost and also crop rotations. Therefore, several research attempts have been made to optimize the integrated uses of inorganic and organic fertilizers at different locations. At Bako maize rotated with nug and at Jimma maize following soybean reduced the recommended fertilizer rates by 50%. Yearly application of 4 ton FYM ha-1 with 46/10 kg NP ha-1gave maize yield comparable to 110/20 kg NP ha-1 and use of compost also had similar trends at Bako. Uses of legumes such as mucuna and Dolichos lablab at Bako and crotalaria, sesbania and mucuna at Jimma as short fallows and green manures enhanced soil fertility and confirmed to replace either partially or fully the N-fertilizer requirement of maize from external sources. Research reports on integration of crop residues with NP fertilizers at Haramaya and coffee by products integrated with N-fertilizer at Areka could enhance soil fertility and made maize production trends sustainable in Ethiopia. The literatures insights on integrated soil fertility management options for maize production in Ethiopia were reviewed in this paper. Keywords: Soil Fertility, Organic Fertilizers, Inorganic Fertilizers, Maize, Yiel

Effects of Mulching and Amount of Water on Yield and Yield Components of Tomato under Drip Irrigation at Adola Rede District, Southern Ethiopia

Water has been recognized as one of the scarcest inputs, which can severely avoid agricultural production and productivity unless it is carefully conserved and managed. This study has investigated the effects of mulching and amount of water on yield and yield components of tomato (Solanum Lycopersicum L.) under drip irrigation at Adola rede District, Southern Ethiopia. The treatments of the study involved combination of three drip irrigation levels (100, 75, and 50% of crop water requirement, ETc) and three mulches (No mulch, white polyethylene sheet, and wheat straw). The yield and yield components in the mulched treatment with excessive stages of irrigation have been considerably higher in compared to these in the unmulched treatments. The yield of tomatoes increased with the growing quantity of irrigation water in mulched treatments. The highest marketable fruit yield for each mulch (35478kg ha-1 for white mulch and 28831kg ha-1 for straw mulch) was obtained when 75% of the crop water requirement used to be applied. With 100% water application, the white plastic mulched treatment produced a decrease marketable fruit yield than the straw-mulched treatment. The best water productivity of (12.915kg m-3) was received with 75% water application under white plastic mulch, But statistically non-significant with straw mulch under 75% crop water requirement application. The highest net benefit of 563475.7ETB ha-1 was recorded from white plastic mulch with 75% ETc and followed by 484454.7ETB ha-1 with Straw mulch with 75% ETc. The lowest net advantage 285477.3ETB ha-1 was acquired from no mulch with 50% ETc. The lowest net benefit to cost ratio was gained under treatment straw mulch with 75% ETc (15.04) and followed by no mulch with 100% ETc (14.32). This end result showed that wheat straw mulch with 75% ETc is economically feasible for tomato production in the Adola area of the Guji zone. Keywords: Crop Water Requirement, Tomato, Drip, Mulching, Water Levels, Marketable Fruit Yield DOI: 10.7176/JEES/12-11-01 Publication date: November 30th 202