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Identity and Development
during times of Crisis:
A conversation
with Professor
Abye Tasse
Brett Cherry speaks with Abye Tasse
about the importance of identity in
rebuilding after crisis
During a political upheaval leading to
militaristic violence or a natural disaster
that brings the history of an entire
country to a standstill, the search for
who we are and where we come from as
individuals, communities and nations
could not be of greater importance.
When disasters occur, whether manmade or ‘natural’, we need to rebuild
not only the physical structures of a
former life, but also an identity. If the
situation is bad enough people may be
forced to leave the very places they first
called home. They may have to travel to
an entirely different social, cultural and
political landscape in order to create a
new life.
Many millions of people from Africa have
experienced this situation firsthand and
one of them, Professor Abye Tasse, who
fled his home country Ethiopia at the
age of 16, was forced not only to leave
his family and culture behind, but also
to immerse himself in an entirely foreign
place, language and people in France.
He is now a world-renowned international
leader in social work education. His PhD
on Ethiopians in France and the United
States: New forms of migration was later
published as a book, and it received the
highest honour in the French education
system.
In France, he started work as a social
youth worker in poor communities.
Later he would describe their situation
thus: ‘The poor who have nothing, yet
we have everything’. He foresaw the
possibilities of poor communities moving
beyond poverty and the plethora of other
seemingly insurmountable challenges
they face.
After he returned to Ethiopia, Tasse
participated in the rebuilding of the
country’s School of Social Work by
serving as its first dean at Addis Ababa
University. The University provides
teaching at undergraduate, master and
PhD level. With the support of sociologist
and social worker Professor Lena
Dominelli at Durham University, he was
elected President of the International
Association of Schools of Social Work.
His role in social work education
included focusing on the development
of African perspectives in teaching
programmes and promoting anti-racist
policies and practices.
Growing up in Ethiopia and migrating
to France, Tasse possessed a distinctive
perspective that combined both African
and European values. He supports social
work education that does not begin
with a clean slate, but within a context
indigenous to the area. According
to Tasse: Being successful with a
community may be considered a populist
approach. Understanding that people are
not just there to be a subject of study,
but want to understand the problems at
hand.
If you link with community you have to
be very careful, because at the same
time it’s going to be seen negatively by a
part of the academia who are supposed
to be distant from the community and
expect to know what’s best for them. It’s
not easy to question the entire system.
You are not an outsider, but you are not
an insider either. All the time you have to
find a balance. The issue is if you don’t
know, you don’t understand.
When social workers and scientists work
with communities, especially those
from non-Western societies, there is a
tendency to apply ‘solutions’ that seem
remote from the problems that people
experience. There is also concern to