Travelling from nowhere to nowhere?: Travel writing and walking in Ethiopia

This essay explores how travel writing can render other places “stuck in history,” as many Western travellers to the African continent – including travel writers Pico Iyer and Dervla Murphy – describe a landscape that has been “invented from the outside”. For these travel writers to Ethiopia, a sense of “nowhereness” or “non-place” positions them as “observer and intellectual” distancing oneself from ordinary people. As a research traveller in Ethiopia, the essay enables (re)consideration of ways I depicted the world for both Ethiopian women and myself. Travel writing by women is often expected to be different to that of male travel writers; women are often expected to reflect on their experiences and their “inner journey”. At the same time, for many women walker-writers, walking is “a metaphor for control” and choosing your own path. Stories from travel and research experiences emphasise the importance of the ethical context of my research travel: travel on a small scale can also be writing in and from Ethiopia.