ABSTRACT
The Conclusion returns to the main argument of the book to highlighting the limitations and challenges that are encountered when gender-related issues, such as intimate partner violence, are studied and approached outside of the conceptual repertoires of the affected communities. The chapter reiterates the urgency for a gender and development approach that eschews tendencies to theorise gender relations or gender-related issues according to preconceived frameworks and that can account more openly for diverse belief and knowledge systems that fall outside of western epistemology. It also underlines the intricacies of linguistic and ‘cosmological translation’ and calls for more transparency around the role of the researcher and the influence of their identity in the research process. The rest of the chapter discusses some of the ways in which the local cosmological framework, and, in particular, religious discourses and clergy pastoral practices, could be integrated into remedial interventions to address conjugal abuse in Aksum and potentially other societies inside and outside Ethiopia sharing important similarities. It is proposed that such faith-oriented tactics will need to combine with state-led and secular initiatives through an integrated approach, which can be challenging to achieve in today’s Ethiopia. With the increasing politicisation of religious identity in recent years, finding bridges between the different stakeholders will require considerable negotiation and good-will on all sides.
