Charles Jędrej and the ‘Deep Rurals’: A West African model moves to the Sudan, Ethiopia, and beyond

Abstract

From his original fieldwork in West Africa, Jędrej moved to teach at the University of Khartoum and pursue further research in the Sudan, especially in the Ingessana Hills of the upper Blue Nile. Here he sought to explore underlying connections between the peripheral minorities of that region and their common involvement in the wider patterns of central Sudanese history. In this project he adopted, and developed, the concept of ‘deep rurals’ from the work of Murray Last. This article shows how effective his work was in helping to break down the old oppositions between ‘state’ and ‘stateless’ societies, and even ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ life. It shows how his application of the ‘deep rurals’ idea has been taken up by others, particularly archaeologists working in the culturally heterogeneous regions of western Ethiopia. The concept informs Jędrej's own later research in Scotland, and might indeed have wider relevance in today's age of hi-tech communications.