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ABBAY IN THE FRENCH LITERATURE: A CRITICAL REVIEW OF HISTORICAL SOURCE ANALYSIS [Abstract ID: 1211-05]
Much has been said, written and debated about the River Abbay, the longest river in the world. It takes its sources from the Northwestern Ethiopian mountains and Lake Tana, the biggest lake in Ethiopia. However, the existing literature largely ignores discussion of its length. Because the river is a very strategic water body that crosses international boundaries, various riparian countries and stakeholders can claim ownership and different levels of water contribution to it. The international nature of the river yields a corpus of literature in different idioms. Of that very literary corpus we do have a rich French literature of several origins such as in the form of travelers accounts, official correspondences, journals, monographs, unpublished or published Doctoral dissertations and published books and articles. Our research questions are as follows: What can we learn from such bodies of diverse documents and literature? How has such source materials contributed to the total body of our knowledge about the Abbay? What is the significance of such materials both for academia and policy makers? The methodology to be employed will mostly qualitative, and include some quantitative methods. The overall objective will be to determine what literature is available in French that focuses on Abbay, what lessons can be drawn from their content, and to document the subject in the mainstream of research on this topic.