Gendered Social Marginalization of Female Potters in Hadiya Zone, Central Ethiopia
Keywords:
Artisans, craft workers, gender, marginalization, Gafat Beta Israel, Hadiya, Wolaba, HossanaAbstract
Scholars have written profusely about the gendered marginalization of women in societies where patriarchy is a dominant system. Research, however, is scant on the gendered marginalization experiences of women who are members of artisan communities such as those in Ethiopia. The present paper attempts to address this gap by reporting on the varied ways women from potters community (a social marginalized artisan group in Hadiya zone), Ethiopia, experienced gendered marginalization. Twenty participants from potters and ten participants from Hadiya community were interviewed. Individual interviews, focus group discussion and participant observation were used to collect data. Data was tape recorded and transcribed and thematic analysis followed to identify meaningful patterns in the data. Participants disclosed that they faced discrimination in the form of performing extremely harsh, exploitative and exhausting domestic work, restrictions on educational opportunities by the dominant society and their own community, physical violence by their own spouses and discriminatory violence by the mainstream Hadiya community. This paper argues that sociocultural marginalization of artisan communities in Ethiopia should not only be framed and conceptualized at a group-level but also should be investigated as a disaggregated experience where factors such as gender need to be accounted for.
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