Awasa Guardian (AG) interviewed German anthropologist, researcher and filmmaker Dr Till J. F. Trojer, whose award-winning documentary film on the Afar people of Ethiopia has been nominated for further international recognition.
AG: Your film “Arho” is getting more accolade, being nominated for best short documentary at the Dallas Independent Film Festival. What inspired you to document and focus on the Afar people?
Dr. Trojer:
The Afar region and the Afar people had always intrigued me. I had visited Ethiopia as a tourist in 2009 on a five-month backpacking trip from Cape Town to Cairo, after working in South Africa for over one year (2007-2008). In 2010, during my undergraduate studies, I returned to Ethiopia as part of an exchange program between Addis Ababa University (AAU) and my host University in Germany (University of Bayreuth). I lived in Addis Ababa sharing a condominium apartment with an Ethiopian student and attended several courses at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology of AAU. In the following years, I returned to Ethiopia to research Ethiopia’s parliamentary system and party politics for a German political foundation, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES), as a tour guide for an Ethiopian agency (Kibran Tours), taking tourists throughout the country (2010-11 and 2012). In 2014-15, I returned for a second exchange semester at Mekelle University in the Tigray regional state studying under Wolber Smidt. My stay in Mekelle was part of my graduate program in Ethiopian Studies at the University of Hamburg (Germany).
During these years I studied Amharic and Tigrinya. Further, I established social relationships throughout the country that would inform my knowledge about Ethiopia and north-east Africa at large. In short, I felt confident that my previous experiences in Ethiopia, together with my language skills and social relations could translate into a PhD project.
In 2017, I returned to Ethiopia to undertake my doctoral research. The Department of Anthropology at Samara University, in the capital of Afar region, invited me as a visiting research fellow. An Afar contact in London had established the links to Samara University, which helped me to obtain my research documents. We agreed that during my first three months, I would assist the staff at the Department and support lectures. In return I would get language training in Afar-Af. After this, I intended to move between the Afar and Tigray regional boundary to commence my research.
While discussing my research with interlocutors, friends and colleagues in Addis Ababa, Samara, Logiya and Mekelle, the salt caravan trade seemed an exciting lens to apply. The history of this salt trade would allow me to focus on regional interactions and the formation of group identities through highly specific, localised ethnography, rather than engaging with primordial notions of ethnicity in the national sphere. Further, there was a literature gap in the exploration of the salt trade. While the salt caravan trade in north-eastern Ethiopia had been researched from the Tigrayan side, the Afar perspective had only been considered peripheral.
The history of north-eastern Ethiopia and discourse on Eritrea, Tigray and Afar have been dominated by a political focus on the liberation movements and ethno-linguistic and religious identity politics. These dominating political narratives have partly impoverished the literature of the region and ethnographic research in these regions is almost non-existent. By focusing on the specific dynamics of social and trade relations along the Afar and Tigray regional boundary, from the perspective of Afar salt traders and one specific community living along the path of the caravan trails, I wanted to fill a gap in the existing literature on the salt caravan trade of north-eastern Africa.
Additionally, there existed a misinformed narrative about the Afar people. Going back to the travel writings, and notes from explorers through in Afar region like Werner Munzinger, Ludovico Nesbitt or Wilfred Thesiger, the Afar had been often descripted as violent, wild, dangerous and fierce. These accounts have further contributed to the distortion of the social dynamics and relations between the various groups living of Afar. This, in my opinion, had long-lasting effects on Ethiopian historiography and perceptions of Afar.
“While the salt caravan trade in north-eastern Ethiopia had been researched from the Tigrayan side, the Afar perspective had only been considered peripheral. The history of north-eastern Ethiopia and discourse on Eritrea, Tigray and Afar have been dominated by a political focus on the liberation movements and ethno-linguistic and religious identity politics. These dominating political narratives have partly impoverished the literature of the region and ethnographic research in these regions is almost non-existent.”
AG: You spoke in depth about how the local Afar community embraced your project and how they were actively involved in its production. But were there some challenges you faced?
Dr. Trojer:
My ethnographic research and especially the making of the documentary early on became a collaborative undertaking. My interlocutors and other members of the communities I worked with were involved in all phases of making this documentary (pre-production, production, and post-production).
Filming of Arho took place in May 2018 about half way through my research. During the remaining month of my research, I was able to get a first rough cut that I presented and discussed with the communities involved. Until the end of my research in October 2018, I used clips and photographs from the documentary as visual props for other interviews.
After making the film, I created rough cuts on my laptop and returned to the people and communities involved in the making of the documentary. I further shared the footage with interlocutors in Mekelle and Addis Ababa. After I returned to London, I continued the editing process on my own. I shared my new edits with my interlocutors and other members of the Afar community involved in my research via VIMEO, an online streaming platform, for comments and feedback, and allowed them a right to veto the film. I reflect further upon the making of this documentary in Chapter Five of this book. My interlocutors and other members of the communities I worked with were involved in all phases of making this documentary (pre-production, production and post-production).
However, there were some disagreements over the final version of the film. Including music in Arho was not something I had considered in my initial proposal. In the first rough cut that I shared with the salt traders involved in making the documentary, I started the film with longer scenes of life in the village, together with atmospheric sounds and the caravan appeared in the background and slowly walked through. This scene was followed by an image of the caravans leaving the village and disappearing into the Sabba Canyon while the title appeared on screen. This first cut then followed the journey in chronological order. When I returned to Barahle to discuss this version with my interlocutors and the salt traders involved in the making of the film, they asked me to pause the video after the opening scene and said: “This is not our village. Why do you start there? You were filming on the mountain when we prepared for the journey [referring to the first three images above]. Where are these images? We want to show our village. Where we live and from where we start our journey”
I explained that I was not happy with the quality of the images from the village and that I thought it more interesting to start out by providing more insight into an Afar village with children, women and men moving around. I also felt that including these shots would slow down the introduction as I did not have a voice-over. For my interlocutors and the other salt traders, however, it was more important to show their village and the starting point of the journey, so we agreed to include this. During our discussion and while watching the footage, they mentioned how the film had no music and that they wanted to include Afar songs about the caravan journey. They suggested several songs they deemed important and wanted us to include as a soundtrack. I experienced frustration during these conversations. I was sceptical, as sound and music not recorded on location and during the journey were not in line with my idea of ethnographic observational cinema. I had the same misgivings about using pre-recorded songs as a soundtrack for an ethnographic documentary and how this stood in relation to “true” ethnographic cinema.
At the end we had long discussion and I included the songs. I felt that my ethical responsibility lay first and foremost with interlocutors and that I had to respect their wishes.
Although I was initially sceptical about using music in this documentary, it helped me rethink and restructure the work in specific ways. Whenever I presented rough or preliminary cuts to other Afar interlocutors in Ethiopia, they first and foremost appreciated the music. After presenting the preliminary version at SOAS after returning from fieldwork in February 2019, an Afar man in the audience commented that he appreciated the choice of music as “these are important songs for the Afar”. Similarly, an Afar colleague in Manchester, who helped me finalize the subtitles, told me “these are Afar classics everyone knows”. The different conversations also made realize that the documentary authenticity in the eyes of an Afar viewership.
AG: You have passionately condemned the re-invasion of Afar region (including those areas you visited personally) by the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF): with hundreds killed by TPLF rebels and over 700,000 Afars displaced & starving. What is your reaction to Western media downplaying the atrocities by TPLF?
Dr. Trojer:
Time will the tell the truth. I believe that because of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the media did not pay as much attention to the conflict in Ethiopia. And when they did, they focused on the conflict between the central government and the TDF/TPLF. Over the past weeks, however, we have seen an increase of coverage of the conflict. Thanks to a very active Afar social media community and researchers like Ann Fitz-Gerald, who visited the Afar region and conducted research on the ground, we learn more and more what happened.
As a foreigner, I find it often difficult to mediate own’s intervention and activism when it comes to Ethiopian politics. I do still struggle with how and where to position myself. One the hand, I maintain very good relations with people in Ethiopia, especially in Afar. Many of my contacts reached out to me with images and videos after the TPLF invaded Afar and asked to be to be a “voice of the Afar people”. I do not think that it is necessary for white foreigner to speak on behalf of Africans and was hesitant to engage. However, I do have a quite strong emotional attachment to the people in the region. Throughout my research, many Afar had welcomed me to stay at their homes, granting me access to interview members of their clans and extended families. I spent many days and nights together with Afar in Samara, Konnaba, Barahle and Mekelle sharing meals, sleeping, and praying next to each other. Many Afar shared their life histories with me, and I mine with them. Without these people, I would not be in the position I am now as young researchers with doctoral degree. I will remain forever grateful and for that. Essentially, I decided to get involved and share information on social media and to join as one of the many voices that spoke out against the TPLFs invasion, brutal attacks, destruction, and looting. For me, this was an act of terror that targeted a specific group of people to reach a political goal.
But again, speaking about Ethiopian politics and taking a strong position against and or for individuals, specific groups or the Ethiopian government is not something I want to. Over the past ten years, I was invited by different institutions in Ethiopia to study or conduct research (Addis Ababa University, Mekelle University, Samara University, the Institute of Ethiopian Studies). I always considered myself to be a guest in Ethiopia and was aware of the privileged position I had as foreigner. Compared to Ethiopian activists or journalists speaking out and condemning the government or political organisations, I personally, I don’t have to fear any wide-reaching repercussions by speaking out. I do not live in Ethiopia and it’s not my country. If I can add to productive discussion coming out of my evident-based research, I am always willing to contribute.
Again, I’m still a young researcher and trying to find my position within academia and the wides space where I can make insightful contributions. It might have been a mistake speaking out and condemning the TPLF invasion of Afar, but I think it helped a bit shedding more light on the situation.
“Thanks to a very active Afar social media community and researchers like Ann Fitz-Gerald, who visited the Afar region and conducted research on the ground, we learn more and more what happened.”
AG: Members of the TPLF elite have attained Western lobbyists, mingle with top politicians in US & Europe, and even the director of World Health Organization (WHO) is one of the executives of TPLF. Do you see any hope that the suffering and voices of Afar, Amhara and other Ethiopians will ever be recognized by the West?
Dr. Trojer:
I think they are more and more now.
AG: One of the most disturbing phenomena the last two years has been Western media and rights groups misappropriation of photos & information. The main victim has been African-American Getty Images photographer Jemal Countess, whose photos documenting the suffering of Afar & Amhara civilians have been repeatedly misused by US & European press and unethically attributed to Tigrayan civilians. Why do you think such misconduct (often scolded in academia) is tolerated in Western journalism covering Africa?
Dr. Trojer:
What is needed in my opinion, is an independent evaluation and verification of the (mis)information spread on social media and in the news including the misappropriation and misuse of images.
AG: On filming your documentary “Arho,” you mentioned the importance of Westerners rejecting their “subconscious” bias, preconceived notions or negative stereotypes in storytelling. With Americans & Europeans depicting our first-term Prime Minister (and a rare black-African Nobel Peace Prize winner who wrote books advocating love & unity in Ethiopia) as a long-serving genocidal dictator craving for war, what is your message to Western journalists & officials who automatically portray us Africans as savages?
Dr. Trojer:
As an anthropologist and filmmaker, I was speaking about the role and function of ethnographic filmmaking and observational cinema as theoretical storytelling and cultural analysis. The boundaries of observational cinema and ethnographic film have traditionally been blurry, fluid and unclear. One ongoing debate is whether ethnographic films should serve primarily for cultural analysis and be of anthropological relevance much like written ethnography, or whether they should use standard story-telling devices to create cinematically aesthetic films that serve a broader audience. But who decides what a good story is? As a German, I was raised with specific ideas of what good storytelling is. I later got influenced by Anglo-American productions and ideas about the “science of storytelling”. This is, however, only one particular perspective aimed for very specific audiences. I have increasingly become interested how other cultures and societies tell stories and what lessons we can learn from that.
For me, and speaking again from an anthropological perspective, I find it important to critical question our assumption about the world and why we use a specific lens to look at the world and why we chose to tell specific stories. For ethnographic cinema – and documentary filmmaking more generally – I find it important that the people filmed are actively involved actively in the production and post-production processes and therefore become participants in storytelling and aesthetic choices. Again, I feet that my ethical responsibility lay first and foremost with the people I work with and whom I portray in my films.
AG: Most Western media and analysis is often focused on the big 4 ethnic groups (Oromo, Amhara, Somali, Tigray); do you have plans to do research and more film on small ethnic groups under threat, like the Qimant, Koore, Gedeo?
Dr. Trojer:
For the time being, I want to further build on my research in Afar. I have plans to extend my research on the salt economies as well as the impact of the war in Konnaba and Barahle. I think it is important to conduct more research on the smaller, forgotten, and marginalized groups in Ethiopia. If there are opportunities to collaborate with local researchers, filmmakers, local institutions, or organisation on other groups like Qimant, Koore or Gedeo, I’d be to work with them.
