Life Trajectories and Changing Patterns of Marginalization Among the Smiths of Hararge, Ethiopia

Abstract

Blacksmithing is one of the oldest traditional technologies among the rural communities of Hararge. Smithing has many functions among which its utilitarian role for agriculturalists clearly stands. This article is basically a survey and adopted historical and ethnographic methods. By collecting qualitative data through interview, focus group discussion, observation and document analysis from seven selected waradas of Hararge, the paper aims to investigate the changing patterns in the status of smiths in terms of their social position in Hararge. It concludes that although smiths were accorded a lowly social position and therefore were not yet considered as equals of the dominant agricultural Oromo in Hararge, the dynamics of social interaction over time have improved the social status of smiths. Smiths and other occupational groups like potters and tanners were treated not as equal partners but as marginalized social groups. This was partly due to the underlying socially constructed origin of the occupational groups which put them below agricultural communities in the social hierarchy and considered them as ‘alien’ and ‘remnants’ of an ancient ‘autochthonic’ population.