Paper long abstract:

Rastafarians from the Caribbean who moved to Ethiopia forty years ago returned to a primordial home and homeland. In Rastafari worldview Ethiopia is the ancestral land of all Africans who were displaced through the trans-atlantic slave trade, and the spiritual and physical origin of all humankind. Rastafari emerged in early 20th century Jamaica from a historical foundation of colonialism, forced and semi-forced migration to and from the Caribbean, and the creation of plantation societies that coalesced in psychological devaluation, and socio-economic stratification that characterised the colour-class system. These conditions fundamentally shaped Caribbean peoples' ideas regarding personhood, inter-connections with the global and the local, and the expectations and experiences of movement in this heterogeneous region. Based on ethnographic research this paper will examine how the paradoxical claiming and shaping of the Caribbean, Ethiopia and Africa enables repatriates in Shashamane to negotiate the convergence of the symbolic Ethiopia with the state of Ethiopia in which they currently live, and where they grapple with and demand access to land and legal status. This discussion is broadly situated in analyses of place relating to concepts of rootedness, indigeneity, and foreignness.