Ethiopian stories in an English landscape

Sobers, Shawn

Abstract

Bath is a UNESCO World Heritage Site with an established narrative of being built by the Romans, and built upon with architectural splendour by the Georgians in the 1700-1800s. This has resulted in a tourist industry worth an annual average of £414 million, with approximately 900,000 overnight visitors (Bathnes, 2016). A lesser known historical story of the city is that it was home to Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I, his wife Empress Menen, their large family, government advisors, and priests, from 1936 – 1941, during Mussolini’s invasion of Abyssinia. This chapter will discuss attempts to introduce this alternative historical narrative into the fabric of Bath’s identity, discussed through my experiences and observations of working in a voluntary capacity over the past 17 years with Fairfield House, (the Emperor’s former home which he gifted to the city in 1954 to be used by elder citizens).

Dominant city narratives written by circumstances of history, birthplace and site of events, can overshadow and inadvertently silence lesser known interest stories and moments of prominence in the imaginary of how the city is viewed, or wants to be officially represented. This chapter will explore what it looks like for diverse members of the local, national and international interest community, working alongside heritage professionals and university students, to engage in activities relating to preserving Fairfield House, attempting to turn it into a multi-purpose space of historical, cultural, religious, and political significance (Karp et al, 2006). The house operates (in a financially precarious way) as a day centre for elder citizens, a museum telling the story of Ethiopian/English relations, and a temporary art gallery exhibiting related contemporary works sympathetic to the history of the house – all with the aim of attempting to establish Fairfield House, and the connected Ethiopian stories, as part of the city’s growing heritage identity (Higonnet, 2009). The chapter will draw on various methodologies and discourses, including autoethnography, ethnography, community development and heritage studies.

References

Bathnes (2016) - Tourism and the Visitor Economy - http://www.bathnes.gov.uk/services/your-council-and-democracy/local-research-and-statistics/wiki/tourism-and-visitor-economy (Last accessed 2 March 2016)

Higonnet, A. (2009) A Museum of One’s Own. Periscope Publishing, New York.

Karp, I. Kratz, C. Szwaja, L. and Ybarra-Frausto, T. (2006) Museum Frictions: Public Cultures/Global Transfomations. Duke University Press. USA

• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2017
• Deposit Date: Jun 21, 2016
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Book Title: Participatory Heritage
• ISBN: 9781783301232
• Keywords: Ethiopia, Bath, Fairfield House, Haile Selassie, Rastafari, senior citizens, bame, black and minority ethnic, museum
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/903442
• Publisher URL: http://www.facetpublishing.co.uk/title.php?id=301232&category_code=#.V2j3DrsrK70
• Contract Date: Feb 8, 2018