Author(s)

Fabienne Le Houérou^1,2

¹CNRS, MIGRINTER, UMR 7301, France.
²Science-Po, Aix-en-Provence, France.

This paper explores the singular role of cross-cultural couples of Italian men and Abyssinian women during the fascist colonies in East Africa (Eritrea and Ethiopia). This article is based on an inquiry driven ethno-historical research conducted 30 years ago in Ethiopia among ex-Italian colonial actors in Ethiopia and their concubines. These ex-colons were calling themselves insabbiatti a very original term locally employed. To be an insabbiatto is to be stuck, shipwrecked, stranded in the sand. It means to be forgotten in Far-South Italian colonies (such as East Africa or Libya).

Ethiopia, Eritrea, Abyssinia, Italian Colonization, Gender, Insabbiatto, Madamism, Antchilite, Bambine Mania, Sexual Abuses, Pedophilia

Le Houérou, F. (2015) Gender and Sexual Abuses during the Italian Colonization of Ethiopia and Eritrea
—The “Insabbiatti”, Thirty Years after. Sociology Mind, 5, 255-267. doi: 10.4236/sm.2015.54023.