Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses emerging social differentiation in Ethiopia's frontier. Contradicting the conventional wisdom that only the powerful exploits the powerless, some local elites from marginalized Afar people, emerging as powerful by colluding with the national political elites.

Paper long abstract:

The Afar people are one of the most marginalized groups of people in the Horn of Africa (HoA) (Dereje, 2011). Politically they are fragmented into three countries -- Ethiopia, Djibouti and Eritrea -- and economically successive governments and more powerful neighbors have appropriated their riverine lands. The Afar people inhabit, one of the most arid and harsh environments, described usually as inhospitable. They live in the frontier regions of the three countries. Contradicting the conventional wisdom that only the powerful exploits the powerless (James Scott, 1990), somelocal elites from the marginalized Afar people in the Ethiopia's frontier, emerging as powerful by colluding with the national political elites. This paper is an output of an ethnographic fieldwork in salt mining business in Eli Dar District, in Afar Region of Ethiopia.