Peripheral People: The Excluded Minorities of Ethiopia

In southern Ethiopia there are craft-workers and hunters who are vigorously excluded from mainstream society. As blacksmiths, potters, tanners, woodworkers, weavers and hunters of wild animals, they fulfil important roles in society, yet many of them are considered by local people to be not real people. They are feared as purveyors of evil and supernatural powers, or despised as outcasts, and face discrimination across the whole social, political and economic spectrum. The marginalization of these groups is not new or localized, and occurs in both the towns and the countryside, in Ethiopia and across Africa.