Azeb N. Madebo

Affiliation:

Assistant Professor 

University of Portland 

Department of Communication and Media 

Ethnic Studies Program affiliate


Education:  

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Southern California  

Master of Arts, University of Southern California  

Bachelor of Arts, University of Washington  

My name is Azeb (she/her), and I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and Media at the University of Portland. 

I received my Ph.D. from the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism in 2022 and my B.A in Communication from the University of Washington, Seattle. 

I am a digital media scholar, Black cultural studies scholar, and Africanist who specializes on Ethiopia and the horn of Africa region. In particular I am fascinated by the ritualistic and community forming processes of online activism and civic engagement; the appropriation and adaptation of communication technologies by Africans for sociopolitical ends like nation building; the relationship between economic development agendas and visions of progress in Ethiopia; and the politics of identity, both racial and ethnic, in the African/Black diaspora. 

 

My dissertation, titled, E/utopia in Practice: the practice and politics of Ethiopian futurity used ethnographic fieldwork, interview data, and digital ethnographic analysis of social media communities and artifacts to examine how Ethiopians from within Ethiopia and the diaspora influence the politics of their homeland, and in the process, come to negotiate their identities and future trajectory of Ethiopia

Research and reviewing interests: 

Digital media, Africana studies, Ethiopian studies, Black diaspora, race, and ethnicity.