Narrative Brief Biography of Dejazmach Woldesemait Gebrewold and his Contributions to Good Governance and Development of Wolaita, South Ethiopia, 1963-1970

Based on the aim and objectives of the study, this work adopted a qualitative research method. Qualitative research method best fits for exploring the life of individual, social phenomena, events and get new knowledge. The study adopted a biographical research design. Levinson (1986) said the following about the biographical research፡ The biographical method is the only one that enables us to obtain a complex picture of the life structure at a given time and to delineate the evolution of the life structure over a span of years. It is well suited for gaining a more concrete sense of the individual life course, for generating new concepts, and in time, for developing new variables, measures and hypotheses. Biographical researches of individual life histories fall into the category of retrospective longitudinal research techniques (Solga, 2001), which are employed to describe patterns of change and the quality (course and scale) of those changes over time (Menard, 2002). The design helps to assess the changes of Wolaita introduced by the governor. The data employed in this paper were collected when the writer was at fieldwork in 2016 and 2017. The data gathering techniques employed were detail interview of key informants and assessment of secondary sources and archival documents. Denzin (2009) categorizes two types of life histories: complete and topical. The complete life history grasps the entire life of the subject; the subject’s past remodeled in all of its complexity, grounded on the personal story of the individual. The topical life history focuses on specific thematic periods in someone’s life; for example, the period of his education. The present work utilized the topical life history type that emphasizes on the work life history of the person particularly when he was governor of Wolaita in the 1960s. The study carried out 9 face-to-face semi-structured in-depth interviews with older citizens whose all ages are between 65 and 92 years old to uncover the life history of the subject and his contributions in line of good governance and development. The number of informants is believed to be appropriate and limited to nine persons only because the persons are selected purposely and they are key informants who lived and worked in Wolaita in the study time. They had worked and contacted with the governor in different times and had sufficient knowledge of the subject under study. The study is not only depended on the interview but also on analysis of written texts and archival sources, for example autobiographical writings, letters and publications. Crosscheck of data accuracy has been made to prove the credibility and authenticity of the sources. The primary sources analyzed were available from the hands of individuals and the library of Addis Ababa University. The available data are analyzed by using descriptive and historical content narrative analysis methods. This data contains the photo of of the Wolaita man, map and letter.基于本研究的研究目的与目标，本研究采用质性研究（qualitative research）方法。质性研究方法最适用于探索个体生命历程、社会现象与事件，并催生新知。本研究采用传记式研究设计（biographical research design）。 莱文森（Levinson, 1986）曾就传记式研究发表如下评述：传记研究法是唯一一种能够让我们获取特定时期个体生命结构的复杂图景，并勾勒出该结构在多年跨度中的演变历程的方法。该方法极有助于具象化理解个体生命轨迹，催生新概念，且最终可用于开发新变量、测量工具与研究假设。 个体生命史的传记研究属于回溯性纵向研究方法范畴（Solga, 2001），此类方法用于描述随时间推移的变化模式与变化质量（轨迹与规模）（Menard, 2002）。本研究设计有助于评估该州长为沃莱塔（Wolaita）地区带来的变革。 本研究的数据采集于2016年与2017年笔者开展田野调研的阶段，所用数据收集方法包括针对关键信息提供者的详细访谈，以及对二手资料与档案文献的梳理分析。 登津（Denzin, 2009）将生命史研究划分为两种类型：全景式与主题式。全景式生命史旨在完整呈现研究对象的全部人生，基于个体的个人叙事，将其过往的全部复杂性重构呈现；主题式生命史则聚焦于个体人生中的特定主题阶段，例如其受教育时期。本研究采用主题式生命史研究范式，重点关注该个体的职业生涯历程，尤其是其在20世纪60年代担任沃莱塔地区州长的阶段。 为挖掘该研究对象的生命史及其在善治与发展领域的贡献，本研究对年龄介于65至92岁之间的老年受访者开展了9次面对面半结构化深度访谈（face-to-face semi-structured in-depth interview）。 本次调研的信息提供者样本量限定为9人，该规模被认为是恰当的，因为这些受访者均为经目的性抽样选取的关键信息提供者，他们在调研周期内曾在沃莱塔地区生活与工作，且曾在不同时段与该州长共事并保持接触，因此对研究主题具备充分的认知。 本研究不仅依赖访谈数据，还对书面文本与档案资源（如自传作品、书信与出版物）展开分析。为确保资料来源的可信度与真实性，研究已开展数据准确性交叉核验工作。 本次分析的一手资料来自私人收藏与亚的斯亚贝巴大学（Addis Ababa University）图书馆馆藏。所获数据采用描述性分析、历史内容叙事分析方法进行处理。该数据集包含沃莱塔地区相关人物照片、地图与书信资料。