Begging as a Survival Strategy: Conferring with the Poor at the Orthodox Religious Ceremonial Days in Addis Ababa
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Date
2003-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
In the absence of any means of livelihood, more and more people were driven to begging, some
temporarily and some permanently. Today, as a result, begging has assumed enormous proportions
and for thousands it is a means of earning livelihood in urban areas in general and in Addis Ababa in
particular. It is one of the most conspicuous, readily visible social problems especially in the religious
comemmorable days of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Like most of the socio-economic problems of
this country, Ethiopia, the beggary problem, is of colossal magnitude, and yet we have no much
knowledge of its dimensions; little has been done on the problem of beggary. Besides, the Ethiopian
literature on poverty and poverty related issues shows that the ‘macro’ level approach has often been
favored by researchers based on statistics and categorizations. These attempts often fail to specify
the problems, relationships and processes usefully and adequately. As such, micro sociologists and/or
anthropologists of an empirical bent have done little research in Ethiopia on poverty in general and
the problem of beggary in particular. The objective of this research is therefore to contribute to the
apparent literature gap and to compensate the in balance by utilizing qualitative and ethnographic
analysis of the beggary problem in the context of the saint days of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
To this effect, participant observation, individual and focus group interviews and in depth case
studies have been composed in an effort to present moving and intimate views of the poor in relation
to their past and present in the framework of the dynamics of the socio- economic history of the
country at large. This was done amid the complexity of the beggary problem and the diverse nature of
the life experiences of each individual beggar considered in the study. As such, attempt has been made
to explore matters pertaining to the overall event or scene of the beggary problem in the context of the
Orthodox religious ceremonial days, precipitating causes for begging as a way of life, the beggars’
multifaceted impoverishment and modes of social interaction among others.
The beggary problem has a lot to do with the country’s socio-economic and historical aspects
characterized by low incomes, high unemployment rates, fast rising cost of living, high rates of
population growth, inappropriate public policies and continued rural- urban migration and
displacement of mass human beings to the city. Thus, the cardinal reason for most of the different
vulnerable categories of beggars to earn a meager living on the streets, churchyards and other
collective quarters of the city is poverty precipitated by different factors and events. The beggars, as
impoverished underclass, presently find themselves in multifaceted and extreme impoverishment which
can generally be characterized by chronic food shortage and insecurity, illiteracy, homelessness or poor housing often on unsuitable land, disease, in sanitary living conditions, death and above all marginalization and exclusion. Presently, there are no committed groups, including the government of course, helping the beggars. Virtually all beggars live through their own efforts and depend on alms givers
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Social Anthropology