Institute at Brown for Environment and Society

Ashley's current project traces Oromo cultural and political imaginaries across time and place, with a particular interest in what she views as an Oromo relatedness with the sacred, medicinal forests and shrines of Dire Sheikh Hussein in the Bale region of South Eastern Ethiopia. Engaging themes of memory, longing, desire and the temporalities of struggle against colonialism and empire, Ashley pays close attention to new forms of life that disperse alongside regimes of catastrophe, dispossession and displacement.