From Conflict Escalation to Conflict Transformation: Actual and Potential Role of Stories and Storytelling Among Marginalized Occupational Minorities in Southern Ethiopia

Authors

Federica De Sisto, Trinity College, The University of Dublin, IrelandFollow

Abstract

Throughout Ethiopia there are minority groups of craft workers and hunters that are excluded from the mainstream society. Pottery is fundamental for carrying water and making food, hoes and iron plough shares are essential for agriculture; cotton cloth is indispensable for clothing; leather products are used for transporting grain or storing. And yet, the specialized workers who produce these items have such a low status that many of them are still considered to be “not human” by their surrounding majorities. The phenomenon of marginalised occupational minorities is so widespread in the country that Levine described it as a “pan-Ethiopian cultural trait”. This paper aims at exploring the role of culture in perpetrating the discrimination against occupational minorities and its potential to lessen it in the societies in which they live.

Recommended Citation

De Sisto, Federica (2014) "From Conflict Escalation to Conflict Transformation: Actual and Potential Role of Stories and Storytelling Among Marginalized Occupational Minorities in Southern Ethiopia," International Journal of African Development: Vol. 1: Iss. 2, Article 7.
Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/ijad/vol1/iss2/7