Awra Amba, a current experiment of utopian socialism Robert Joumard To cite this version: Robert Joumard. Awra Amba, a current experiment of utopian socialism. [Research Report] Attac. 2012. hal-00916551 HAL Id: hal-00916551 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00916551 Submitted on 10 Dec 2013 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Robert JOUMARD Awra Amba, a current experiment of utopian socialism June 2012 Robert Joumard is emeritus senior scientist (Ifsttar), in Bron, France. Contact:
[email protected] Summary This is a review of the available literature on the Ethiopian utopian community of Awra Amba, i.e. mainly of four master reports and secondly of news reports and accounts. It allows us to show the troubled historic evolution of this community founded in 1972 by a small group of illiterate peasants around one of them. Then, we present the values – honesty, equality, solidarity, rationalism – which are founding the community and are at the heart of its pattern of living. Next we present the social organization of this village of 400 inhabitants, through its institutions, economic activities, gender equality, especially at work, marriage, solidarity between members and especially with the elders, children activities, funeral and management of internal conflicts.