Self‐Administration Units or Camps? Scrutinizing the Ethiopian Sub‐Federal Arrangements

ABSTRACT This article aims to show how the Ethiopian ethnofederation, rather than stabilizing the country, has resulted in a web of problems that are shaking the state to its core. Most importantly, how it is putting citizens, especially those regarded as non‐indigenous, in dire situations, by taking its sub‐federal arrangements or self‐administration units by using the concept of ‘camp’ Agamben elaborated in his different works. It is believed that these self‐administration units are very important foundations of the Ethiopian federal system, as they allow previously overlooked identities in guaranteeing equality. Moreover, they are understood as the manifestation of the right to self‐determination of the nations, nationalities and peoples of the country. However, the article argues that these units have turned into geographical spaces and locations or camps whereby biopolitical subjects are produced. The article used the large number of Amhara people dispersed throughout the federation and are politically as well as economically disenfranchised; referred to as using derogatory nomenclatures; and also constantly targeted, attacked, killed and displaced, as a case. To do so, the article mainly used secondary sources to collect data: different reports from various sources were collected and analysed.