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Fatema Mernissi Postdoctoral Fellow

Fatema Mernissi Postdoctoral Fellow

Netsanet Gebremichael earned her Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Social Studies from Makerere Institute of Social Research, Makerere University Uganda in 2019. She currently works as an Assistant Professor and researcher at Addis Ababa University's Institute of Ethiopian Studies. Since October 2021, she has also been a Fatima Mernissi Post-Doctoral Fellow at The Africa Institute in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. From April 2010 to November 2012, Gebremichael served as the Director of Addis Ababa University's Gender Office, where she initiated several projects, including a Gender Resource Center IT lab and a library for disadvantaged students.

Gebremichael's academic research focuses on memory, archival studies, historical and cultural documentation practices, particularly through oral history projects. Recently, she completed the first phase of documentation on oral recollections of the 1977 Famine in Ethiopia as experienced by women. She also compiled a monograph based on an oral history study of inter-generational perspectives on Emperor Hailessilassie's era. Her works also include documentation on Women in the Ethiopian Student Movement (1950-78), which she conducted as the recipient of the Global Research Network Grant managed by SOAS University of London (2019-2021). Gebremichael's research outcome led to an archival exhibition titled Kibibilosh, which she curated at the Modern Art Museum, Gebre Kristos Desta Center in Addis Ababa (7 May – 28 July 2021).

She has published several academic articles, including "Mapping the notion of the transnational: A close reading of the ‘Women’s Question’ from the Ethiopian Student Movement’s publications in the 1960s and 1970s" (2023); A book chapter, “PPPs meet the developmental state: The case of Ethiopia,” in book, Corporate Capture of Development (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023) which has been adapted into a podcast and an animation film; "Oral Memories of the 1977 Famine in Ethiopia" in Transition, Issue 133 (2022); "Ambivalent Memories of Imperial legacies: Asmara as ‘Beautiful' and ‘Segregationist' from Ethiopia," published in the Journal of Cultural Studies (2020); and "Travel Writing as an Empirical Mode of Knowing: A Methodological Critique of James Bruce’s Travels and Adventures in Abyssinia," published in MISR Review (2019).

She is currently working on a book manuscript titled Tizita’s path to Reckoning: Reminiscing Asmara from Ethiopia 1998-2018, based on her Ph.D. dissertation. Gebremichael is also preparing a monograph on Women in the Ethiopian Student Movement (1950–1978).