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Learning from South Omo: New research by agro-pastoralist communities in Southern Ethiopia
Key information
- Date
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- Time
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10:30 am to 5:00 pm
- Venue
- SOAS Gallery
- Room
- First Floor photography studio
- Event type
- Exhibition & Event highlights
About this event
South Omo Zone, a lowland area of Ethiopia close to the borders with Kenya and South Sudan, has undergone rapid and unprecedented change in recent decades. Customary livelihoods – based on combinations of animal herding, small-scale agriculture and shifting cultivation – have been undermined by land-grabbing for sugar plantations, national parks and hydro-electric projects.
Opening times
The exhibition is open from 14th October -13th December 2025, Tuesday – Saturday (10:30am to 5:00pm) and late on Thursdays until 8:00pm. The roof garden is open whenever the exhibitions are open.
Tourists flock to this remote region to visit the indigenous inhabitants, but these encounters often confirm stereotypes of exotic and unchanging tribes. Meanwhile, climate change further upsets the delicate ecology of the flood plains of the Lower Omo River.
Within dominant narratives of modernisation, the inhabitants of South Omo are seen as the last remnants of a disappearing world. Yet, far from lacking agency or knowledge, the people of the area are keen to communicate alternative narratives about development and share their aspirations and worries for the future. The richness in expertise derives from their daily experience of their localities but also deep reflection on how it is changing.
This exhibition presents new learning from South Omo generated through two research programmes: Mursi Encounter Others and Agro-Pastoralists Educate Others. Supported by scholars from SOAS University of London and the Institute of Peace and Security Studies at the University of Addis Ababa, more than fifty research projects covered a wide range of subjects. Topics were devised and projects led by researchers representing the Arbore, Banna, Bodi, Daasanach, Mursi, Nyangatom and Hamer communities. All results are wholly owned by the researchers themselves and appear here with their permission. This is research about people in South Omo, by people in South Omo, and for people in South Omo.
Exhibition Curators: Richard Axelby, Hannah Bennett and Mercy Mulugeta
Funders: Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC); International Science Partnership Fund (ISPF); SOAS Impact Acceleration Award (IAA)
