Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T11:46:46.816Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Human Rights and NGO ‘Wrongs’: Conflict Diamonds, Culture Wars and The ‘Bushman Question’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2011

Jacqueline Solway
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I examine the struggle surrounding the relocations of Bushmen from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in Botswana. Despite a recent court decision allowing the Bushmen to return, the ‘war of words’ continues and the Bushmen's circumstances remain inconclusive. I analyse and compare the actions of transnational and local NGOs and the Botswana state in addressing the ‘Bushman Question’ and consider the impacts of the various strategies and images deployed. The clash between essentialized views of pristine hunter-gatherers and images of Bushmen as modern citizens in the making has contributed to the problematic outcome thus far.

L'article examine le conflit qui entoure le déplacement des Bushmen de la Réserve de gibier du Kalahari central au Botswana. Malgré une décision de justice récente autorisant le retour des Bushmen, la « guerre des mots » continue et la situation des Bushmen n'est toujours pas résolue. L'article analyse et compare les actions d'ONG locales et transnationales et de l’État du Botswana face à la « question des Bushmen » et considère l'impact des diverses stratégies et images déployées. Le conflit entre des conceptions essentialisées des chasseurs-cueilleurs parfaits et des images de Bushmen citoyens modernes en devenir, a contribué à la situation problématique à laquelle on aboutit jusqu’à présent.

Type
Research Articles
Information
Africa , Volume 79 , Issue 3 , August 2009 , pp. 321 - 346
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Barnard, A. (1992) ‘The Kalahari debate: a bibliographic essay’. Occasional Papers No. 35, Centre of African Studies. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Barnard, A. (2006) ‘Kalahari revisionism, Vienna, and the “indigenous peoples” debate’, Social Anthropology 14 (1): 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BBC (2005) ‘Row over Bushmen “genocide”’, 6 November, http://news. bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/4404816.stm , accessed 2 December 2006.Google Scholar
Biesele, M. (2006) ‘The Kalahari Peoples Fund: the activist legacy of the Harvard Kalahari research group’ in Solway, J. (ed.), The Politics of Egalitarianism. New York NY: Berghahn.Google Scholar
Botswana National Archives (1887a) HC 153/1 (High Commission for South Africa). On Bakgalagadi and Bushmen slavery.Google Scholar
Botswana National Archives (1887b) HC 16/7 Report by Reverend Roger Price to Sidney Shippard concerning Bakgalagadi and Bushmen.Google Scholar
Corry, S. (2007) ‘Survival International replies’, Anthropology Today 23 (5): 5.Google Scholar
Das, V. (2004) ‘Signature of the state: the paradox of “illegibility”’ in Das, V. and Poole, D. (eds), Anthropology in the Margins of the State. Santa Fe CA: School of American Research.Google Scholar
Das, V. and Poole, D. (2004) Anthropology in the Margins of the State. Santa Fe CA: School of American Research.Google Scholar
Democracy Now http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl , accessed 6 November 2006.Google Scholar
Economist (2000) ‘Sins of the secular missionaries’, 27 January, http://personal.lse.ac.uk/berge/happyhour/2006-2007_summer/economist_ngos.pdf , accessed 20 May 2008.Google Scholar
Elyachar, J. (2005) Markets of Dispossession: NGOs, economic development, and the state in Cairo. Durham NC: Duke University Pressxs.Google Scholar
Englund, H. (2006) Prisoners of Freedom: human rights and the African poor. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Ferguson, J. (2006) Global Shadows: Africa in a neoliberal world order. Durham NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Fraser, N. (1995) ‘From redistribution to recognition? Dilemmas of justice in a “post-socialist” age’, New Left Review 121: 68–93.Google Scholar
Gordon, R. J. (1992) The Bushman Myth. Boulder CO: Westviewxs.Google Scholar
Guenther, M. (2006) ‘Contemporary Bushmen art, identity, politics and the primitivism discourse’ in Solway, J. (ed.), The Politics of Egalitarianism. New York NY: Berghahn.Google Scholar
Hitchcock, R. (2006) ‘Land, livestock and leadership among the Ju/'hoansi San of north-western Botswana’ in Solway, J. (ed.), The Politics of Egalitarianism. New York NY: Berghahn.Google Scholar
Hitchcock, R. and Biesele, M. (2006) ‘Seeking social justice: the politics of land and resource rights in the Central Kalahari, Botswana’, paper prepared for American Anthropological Association meetings, San Jose.Google Scholar
Hitchcock, R. and Holm, J. (1993) ‘Bureaucratic domination of hunter gatherer societies: a study of the San in Botswana’, Development and Change 24 (2): 328–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hitchcock, R. and Vinding, D. (1999) [2001] ‘A chronology of major events relating to the Central Kalahari Game Reserve II: an update’. Botswana Notes and Records 33: 61–72.Google Scholar
Hodgson, D. (2002) ‘Precarious alliances: the cultural politics and structural predicaments of the indigenous rights movements in Tanzania’, American Anthropologist 104 (4): 1086–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joyce, J. (1937) ‘Report on the Masarwa in the Bamangwato Reserve, Bechuanaland Protectorate’ Geneva, League of Nations Publications, VIB Slavery, Annex, 6: 57–76.Google Scholar
Kuper, A. (1993) ‘Post-modernism, Cambridge and the Great Kalahari debate’, Social Anthropology 1 (1A): 57–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuper, A. (2003) ‘The return of the native’, Current Anthropology 44 (3): 389–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kymlicka, W. (1995) Multicultural Citizenship. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lee, R. B. (1986) ‘The gods must be crazy but the state has a plan: government policy towards the San in Namibia’, Canadian Journal of African Studies 20 (1): 181–90.Google Scholar
London Missionary Society (1935) ‘Report of an enquiry by the South Africa District Committee’. Alice, South Africa: Lovedale.Google Scholar
Mackenzie, J. (1871) Ten Years North of the Orange River. Edinburgh: Edmonton and Douglas.Google Scholar
Mmegi (2006/2007) 15 September 2006, 26 September 2006 and 11 January 2007. Available at http://www.mmegi.bw/, accessed repeatedly.Google Scholar
Mostert, H. (forthcoming) ‘Beyond Richtersveld or the parameters of restitution: policy and legislation through the judicial lens’ in Godden, I. (ed.), Sustainable Futures.Google Scholar
Nyati-Ramahobo, L. (2002) ‘From a phone call to the High Court: Wayeyi visibility and the Kamanakao Association's campaign for linguistic and cultural rights in Botswana’, Journal of Southern African Studies 28 (4): 685–710.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Patterson, S. (2004) ‘The foundations of aboriginal title in South Africa? The Richtersveld community vs Alexkor Ltd decisions’, Indigenous Law Bulletin 18: 5 (30). http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgibin/sinodisp/au/journals/ILB/2004/18.html#Heading1 , accessed 1 August 2008.Google Scholar
Ramsay, J. (1998) ‘The establishment and consolidation of the Bechuanaland Protectorate’ in Edge, W. A. and Lekorwe, M. H. (eds), Botswana: politics and society. Pretoria: J. L. van Schaik.Google Scholar
Republic of Botswana (2001) Third Draft Management Plan: Central Kalahari Game Reserve and Khutse Game Reserve. Department of Wildlife and National Parks. Gaborone: Government Printer.Google Scholar
Republic of Botswana (2006) Attorney General's Statement on the outcome of the case of Roy Seasana and others vs the Attorney General, Dr Atlhalia Molokomme, 14 December 2006, Gaborone.Google Scholar
Robins, S. (2001) ‘“Bushmen” and double vision: the = Khomani San land claim and the cultural politics of “community” and “development” in the Kalahari’, Journal of Southern African Studies 27 (4): 833–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salisbury, R. (1986) A Homeland for the Cree. Kingston: McGill-Queens.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samatar, A. I. (1999) An African Miracle: state and class leadership and colonial legacy in Botswana development. Portsmouth NH: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Saugestad, S. (2001) The Inconvenient Indigenous: remote area development in Botswana, donor assistance, and the first people of the Kalahari. Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute.Google Scholar
Saugestad, S. (forthcoming) ‘San development challenges in development cooperation’ in Hitchcock, R. K., Ikeya, Kazunobu, Biesele, Megan and Lee, Richard (eds), Updating the San: image and reality of an African people in the 21st century, Senri Ethnological Studies No. 70. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology.Google Scholar
Schapera, I. and Merwe, D. F. van der (1945) ‘Note on tribal groupings, history, and customs of the Bakgalagadi’, Communications for the School of African Studies (New Series, No. 13). Cape Town: School of African Studies.Google Scholar
Scott, J. (1998) Seeing Like a State. New Haven CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Solway, J. (1994) ‘From shame to pride: politicized ethnicity in the Kalahari, Botswana’, Canadian Journal of African Studies 28 (2): 254–74.Google Scholar
Solway, J. (2002) ‘Navigating the “neutral” state: “minority” rights in Botswana’, Journal of Southern African Studies 28 (4): 711–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solway, J. (2003) ‘In the eye of the storm: the state and non-violence in Southern Africa (Botswana)’, Anthropological Quarterly 7 (3): 485–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solway, J. (2004) ‘Reaching the limits of universal citizenship: “minority” struggles in Botswana’ in Berman, B.Eyoh, D. and Kymlicka, W. (eds), Ethnicity and Democratization in Africa. Oxford and Athens OH: James Currey and Ohio University Press.Google Scholar
Solway, J. (2005) ‘Anthropologist and accomplice in Botswana’ in Meneley, A. and Young, D. J. (eds), Auto-Ethnographies: the anthropology of academic practice. Peterborough: Broadview.Google Scholar
Solway, J. (2007) ‘Branding diamonds and branding Bushmen: the Central Kalahari Game Reserve case’, paper presented at annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington DC.Google Scholar
Solway, J. and Lee, R. (1990) ‘Foragers genuine and spurious: situating the Kalahari San in history’, Current Anthropology 31 (2): 109–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solway, J. and Nyati-Ramahobo, L. (2004) ‘Democracy in process: building a coalition to achieve political, cultural and linguistic rights in Botswana’, Canadian Journal of African Studies 38 (3): 603–21.Google Scholar
Suzman, J. (2002/2003) ‘Kalahari conundrums: relocation, resistance and international support in the Central Kalahari, Botswana’, Before Farming 4 (12): 1–10.Google Scholar
Sylvain, R. (2002) ‘“Land, water, and truth”: San identity and global indigenism’, American Anthropologist 104 (4): 1074–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sylvain, R. (2005) ‘Disorderly development: globalization and the idea of “culture” in the Kalahari’, American Ethnologist 32 (3): 354–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sylvain, R. (2006) ‘Class, culture and recognition: San farm workers and indigenous identities’ in Solway, J. (ed.), The Politics of Egalitarianism. New York NY: Berghahn.Google Scholar
Tagart, E. (1933) ‘Report on conditions existing among the Masarwa in the Bamangwato Reserve of the Bechuanaland Protectorate and certain other matters appertaining to the natives living therein’. Pretoria: Government Printer.Google Scholar
Taylor, C. (1994) Multiculturalism. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, I. and Mokhawa, G. (2003) ‘Not forever: Botswana, conflict diamonds, and the Bushmen’, African Affairs 102 (407): 261–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, J. (2007) ‘Celebrating San victory too soon?’, Anthropology Today 23 (5): 3–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Werbner, R. (2002) ‘Introduction: challenging minorities, difference and tribal citizenship in Botswana’, Journal of Southern African Studies 28 (4): 671–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Werbner, R. (2004) Reasonable Radicals and Citizenship in Botswana: the public anthropology of Kalanga elites. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Wilmsen, E. (1989) Land Filled with Flies. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Wylie, D. (1990) A Little God: the twilight of patriarchy in a Southern African chiefdom. Hanover NH: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar