The Idea of Ethiopia: Heritage Tourism in the Land of Origins

Author

Hosaena T. Tilahun, Dartmouth CollegeFollow

Date of Award

Spring 6-10-2025

Document Type

Thesis (Undergraduate)

Department

Geography

First Advisor

Abigail Neely

Second Advisor

Luis F. Alvarez León

Abstract

Hosaena Tilahun's "The Idea of Ethiopia" explores how heritage tourism in Addis Ababa cultivates Ethiopian patriotism and exceptionalism. Through an in-depth, close reading of the National Museum of Ethiopia, Unity Park, and the Oromo Cultural Center, supplemented by observations at the Red Terror Memorial Museum and Dergue Prison, Tilahun examines how heritage sites shape the political memory of national resistance, revolution, and Black internationalist thought. Tilahun discovers omissions of Menelik II's role in the Red Sea Slave network, encountering museum and archival silences about the internal conquest of peoples peripheral to the northern Abyssinian empire. As these heritage site renovations coincide with ongoing, popular ethno-nationalist struggles under Abiy Ahmed's Prosperity Party's regime, such as the Qeerroo movement and Tigray genocide, Ethiopian heritage tourism emerges as a political tool to encourage explicit interpretations of past fascist invasions, like resisting the Scramble for Africa, while deliberately obscuring modern parallels to contemporary state violence.

Recommended Citation

Tilahun, Hosaena T., "The Idea of Ethiopia: Heritage Tourism in the Land of Origins" (2025). Geography Undergraduate Senior Theses. 15.
https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/geography_senior_theses/15