nhân học sinh thái Environmental Anthropology in the Kalahari: Development, Resettlement, and Ecological Change Among the San of Southern Africa

Sang thế kỷ 20, đã xuất hiện một số trường phái nghiên cứu mối quan hệ giữa con người và môi trường theo các tiếp cận chuyên ngành, như: nhân học sinh thái với 5 hướng tiếp cận: sinh thái học linh trưởng, sinh thái học văn hóa, sinh thái học lịch sử, sinh thái học chính trị, sinh thái học tín ngưỡng. Các hướng nghiên cứu này được thực hiện ở những cộng đồng nhỏ, nơi có sự thống nhất cao hơn về tri thức môi trường và biên độ đa dạng của môi trường cũng nằm trong khả năng nhận thức, điều chỉnh của con ngườ

Anthropologists have worked intensively with the San (Bushmen, Basarwa) for over

50 years, although there had been studies conducted among San peoples since the

early to mid-19th century (Schapera 1930; Lee 1976; Barnard 1992, 2007:23-52)

San, like other peoples in southern Africa, were affected greatly by colonization and

pro-cesses of sociopolitical and environmental change In spite of efforts to ensure the

well-being of San by well-meaning anthropologists and development workers, many San are

worse off today that they were in the 1950s by almost every measure – standard of

liv-ing, mortality rates, degree of dependency on state support, and land ownership (Suzman

2001a, b; Lee et al 2002; Lee 2003; Hitchcock et al 2006) At the same time, San are more

outspoken than they used to be, pointing out their concerns of how they are being treated

RobeRt K HitcHcocK, Michigan State University

Megan biesele, Kalahari Peoples Fund

Wayne babcHuK, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Environmental Anthropology in the Kalahari:

Development, Resettlement, and Ecological

Change Among the San of Southern Africa

RobeRt K HitcHcocK, Megan biesele, and Wayne babcHuK

ABSTRACT

This paper addresses the ways in which environmental anthropology has affected – and been

affected by – the San (Bushmen) of southern Africa, particularly the Ju/’hoansi of

northwest-ern Botswana and northeastnorthwest-ern Namibia Anthropological research and development work

carried out in the Kalahari Desert over the past 50 years has shed considerable light on issues

ranging from the ecology of hunting and gathering to the impacts of sedentism, and from

demography of small-scale societies to the effects of globalization and climate change

Eco-logical anthropology and conservation biology have focused a great deal of attention on the

Ju/’hoansi and other San, who today are some of the best-known and most intensively

stud-ied populations on the planet A wide range of variation exists among the lifestyles of San

peoples, all of whom have undergone substantial socioeconomic changes Here, particular

emphasis is placed on the ways in which development, resettlement, and ecological change

have affected the Ju/’hoansi and their neighbors The lessons learned from these studies have

affected both academic writing in ecological anthropology and policies aimed at enhancing

the well-being of the San and conserving their environments

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and the degree to which they have a say over their own futures.

While many of the anthropological text books and cultural ecological studies tend to focus on the Ju/’hoan San, assuming that their patterns are characteristic ones for all San

or for savannah foragers and food producers, there is, in fact, significant variation among San This is demonstrated in the ethnographic research among other San groups in southern Africa Table 1 contains a summary of the numbers of San in the various countries in south-ern Africa It can be seen that there are some 100,000 San in six different southsouth-ern African countries: Angola, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe The largest populations of San are found in Botswana and Namibia Tables 2-5 provide an overview

of some of the interdisciplinary research groups and individuals that have worked with San and topics that they have addressed As Richard Lee (2003:176, personal communica-tion, 2007) has noted, these studies have had substantial impacts, not only on the fields of anthropology and indigenous peoples’ studies, but also on development and especially on the San themselves

Table 1 Numbers of San in Southern Africa

Note: Data obtained from James Suzman (2001a:4), the Working Group of Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa (WIMSA), and from Roger Chennels of Chennels-Albertyn, South Africa

Table 2 Members of the Marshall Expeditions (Peabody-Harvard Smithsonian Kalahari

Expeditions)

recording

Laurence K Marshall 1950, 1951, 1952-53, 1955, 1956,

1957-58, 1961

Photography, project administration Lorna Marshall 1951, 1952-53, 1955, 1961 Social anthropology

John Marshall 1950, 1951, 1952-53, 1955,

1957-58, 1972, 1978, 1980-82, 1984,

1987, 1988, 1989, 1990s, 2003

Social anthropology, film making

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas 1951, 1952-53, 1955 Social anthropology

administration

development

Note: Adapted from Marshall (1976:ix-xv, 1-3, 10-11)

Table 3 Members of the Harvard Kalahari Research Group (HKRG), Date(s) of Research, and Subjects That Were Investigated

Meghan Biesele 1970-72, 1975-76 Folklore, healing, social

change, language

social organization

hunting behavior Patricia Draper 1968-1969, 1975, 1987, 1991 Childhood,

gender relations

Henry Harpending 1968-1969, 1975, 1987 Population structure,

genetics

social networks

traditional medicine

ethology Richard Lee 1963-1964, 1967-1969, 1973,

1980, 1999, 2006

Ethnology, ecology, social organization, social change Marjorie Shostak 1969-1971 1975, 1989 Life histories, gender Jiro Tanaka 1967-1968, 1971-1972, 1975 Subsistence ecology,

social organization Stewart Truswell 1967, 1968, 1969 Medicine, nutrition John Yellen 1968-1970, 1975-1976 Settlement patterns,

archaeology, ethnoarchaeology

Table 4 Members of the University of New Mexico Kalahari Project, Date(s) of Research,

and Subjects That Were Investigated

serogenetics

structure, serogenetics Robert K Hitchcock 1975-76, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1981,

1982, 1985, 1988, 1989, 1990,

1991, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2005

Ethnoarchaeology, cultural anthropology, development,

environmental impact assessment

development

community development Note: Adapted from Hitchcock (see www.kalaharipeoples.org)

Table 5 Japanese Anthropological, Ecological, and Geographic Research among San in Southern Africa

Jiro Tanaka Kyoto University, Center for

African Area Studies

Social anthropology, human ecology Masakazu Osaki Himeji-Dokkyo University Social Anthropology,

hunting behavior Kazuyoshi Sugawara Kyoto University, Faculty for

Integrated Studies

Social Anthropology, Sociolinguistics Kenichi Nonaka Mie University, Department of

Geography

Ethnoentomology, Ethnogeography Kaoru Imamura-Hayaki Nagoya Gakuin University Behavior, Plant gathering Kazunobu Ikeya National Museum of Ethnology Social Change,

Development Hirosi Nakagawa Tokyo University of Foreign

Studies

Linguistics, Phonology

Ethnosemantics Akira Takada Kyoto University, Center for

African Area Studies

Social anthropology, human ecology Note: Data obtained from Jiro Tanaka, Kazuyoshi Sugawara, and Kazunobu Ikeya

Overview of Anthropological Research among the San

Intensive anthropological work among the Ju/’hoansi San has been conducted since 1950, beginning with the Marshall family (1951-1961) in the Nyae Nyae region of Namibia and the Harvard Kalahari Research Group (1963-1971) in the Dobe-/Xai/Xai area of Botswana (Marshall 1976:1-11; Thomas 1980; Lee 2003) Ethnoarchaeology, the study of contempo-rary societies with the purpose of better understanding the past, was a major focus of the work of John Yellen among the Ju/’hoansi of northwestern Botswana (1977) In the 1970s, development work was carried out by Megan Biesele in the Dobe-/Xai/Xai area This work has continued to the present with the assistance of a number of non-government organiza-tions, donors, development workers, and individual (Biesele, Hitchcock, and Daggett, in process)

The Marshall family managed to carry out an impressive series of visits to the Kala-hari that drew on a large number of disciplines (Hitchcock 2004; Speeter-Blaudszun 2004) Some of the work of Lorna Marshall, though she was not a trained anthropologist, was in-fluenced by the cultural ecology of Julian Steward and the work of ethnographers including Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, Isaac Schapera, Alfred Kroeber, and Clyde Kluckhohn It is

interesting to note that when the Marshall family made plans to go to the Kalahari in 1950,

not a single anthropologist expressed any interest in accompanying them (Lorna Marshall,

personal communication, 1990) But by the late 1960s and 1970s, Lorna Marshall was

considered the ‘grande dame of hunter-gatherer anthropology’ (Thomas 2006:50)

The Marshalls were followed by Richard Lee and the Harvard Kalahari Research

Group (HKRG) who worked in the Dobe-/Xai/Xai area of western Ngamiland (North West

District), Botswana The research by Lee and his colleagues was distinctly

interdisciplin-ary and was both ecologically and socially oriented (Lee and DeVore 1976; Lee 1979)

This work came at a time when ecological anthropology was transitioning toward a focus

on interactions between variable ecosystems and humans, and on humans as a dynamic

part of an ecosystem (For a discussion of changes over time in ecological anthropology,

see Kottak 1999; Moran 2006; Sponsel 2007)

In the 1980s, the conclusions drawn from the work on the Ju/’hoansi were the subject

of considerable debate (see, for example, Wilmsen 1989, 2003; Lee and Guenther 1993;

Lee 2003, 2006) The Kalahari Debate, as it has become known, had two very

differ-ent perspectives on the Ju/’hoansi One perspective was that the Ju/’hoansi were largely

hunters and gatherers ‘living under changed circumstances and maintaining an old but

adaptable way of life’ (Lee and Guenther 1993:185) The other perspective was that the

Ju/’hoansi were people who had been affected greatly by their interactions over time with

other groups and by their incorporation into a global system of production, consumption,

and distribution This approach sees the Ju/’hoansi as having been incorporated historically

into a complex, inclusive class structure as what can be termed an underclass (Wilmsen

1983:17, 1989) Rather than being autonomous actors, then, the Ju/’hoansi are viewed as

being part of a much larger system of commodity capitalism

Overviews of the relationships among San and anthropologists have shed light on

the complexity of the interactions that have taken place (Barnard 2007) These interactions

have included close collaborative relationships in which San groups and anthropologists

work on development projects, as seen, for example, in the work of Megan Biesele (2003)

among the Ju/’hoansi in Ngamiland, the efforts of the University of New Mexico Kalahari

Project on the Nata River and Western Sandveld region of Central District, Botswana in

1975-76 (Hitchcock 1978, 1988), and the work of John Marshall and Claire Ritchie

(Mar-shall and Ritchie 1984) among the Ju/’hoansi of Nyae Nyae They also included detailed

demographic and other kinds of research

The San have said that they did not want to see ‘research for research’s sake’ – that

instead, they preferred research to have direct impacts on their needs and well-being (see,

for example, the discussions in Motshabi and Saugestad 2004) Members of San groups

have spoken out not just in conferences and workshops in southern Africa but at

interna-tional meetings as well, including those of the Working Group of Indigenous Populations

in Geneva and the World Bank They have said that they want to collaborate with social

scientists, ecologists, economists, human rights activists and others in seeking to promote

development and human rights

Changes among the San

In many ways, changing research interests mirrored the changes taking place among the San themselves As a result of government development policies, settlement, and land re-form efforts, Ju/’hoansi underwent major transre-formations over time Many groups moved into settlements where the government provided physical and social infrastructure (water, schools, and health posts) and development assistance San in areas designated as commer-cial leasehold ranches either moved to places known as communal service centers or stayed

on the ranches as herders and domestic workers

By the 1980s, the Botswana Ju/’hoansi were living in 8 settlements (see Table 6) They, like their kin right across the border in Namibia, were making their living using a mix of activities, including food and cash distributions from the Botswana government’s Remote Area Development Program People in remote areas in Botswana were also able,

thanks to government legislation passed in 1979 (the Unified Hunting Regulations), to hunt

specified numbers and types of animals using Special Game Licenses, although admittedly people sometimes had difficulty in getting access to these licenses (Hitchcock and Masilo 1995) The right to engage in subsistence hunting, however, was done away with in Ngami-land by the North West District Council and the Department of Wildlife and National Parks

in 1996

Anthropologists and NGO workers lived among and worked closely with San groups throughout this time of socioeconomic upheaval As first-hand witnesses to the changes occurring, researchers like Richard Lee recognized how important it was to look at San for the world citizens that they were He and others realized that the needs of the San could

be filled in part by a combination of academic advocacy and the application of academic research

Because of the situations facing San and efforts of the Botswana government to involve anthropologists more in monitoring and development work, research shifted in the mid-1970s toward more applied-oriented kinds of anthropological studies (Hitchcock 2004) Topics investigated included land reform impacts and adaptations to drought and environmental stress Applied and development work was carried out with an eye toward addressing some of the social justice issues that the San were facing, including lack of secure access to land, water, and other natural resources Some of this work was done by personnel associated with the Kalahari Peoples Fund, an advocacy organization that had grown out of the work of the Marshall family and the Harvard Kalahari Research Group (see Biesele 2003) There was also anthropological work sponsored directly by the gov-ernment of Botswana aimed at assessing the impacts of projects such as those involving livestock development and land reform (Wily 1979)

Table 6 Ju/’hoan San Communities in Western Ngamiland (North West District), Botswana

Name of

Community

Controlled Hunting Area Number, Size

(square kilometers)

San Population and Total Population and Composition

Activities

Tsodilo Hills NG 6, 225 sq km 70 (of 140, 50%)

Mbukushu

tourism, farming, small stock, crafts, foraging

Nxau Nxau NG 2, 7,448 sq km 488 (of 813, 66%)

Herero

foraging, farming, crafts, livestock Dobe NG 3, 5,760 sq km 100 at Dobe, 350 (of

550, 63%) in Dobe localities, Herero

foraging, farming, crafts, livestock

Goshe (Qoshe) NG 3, 5,760 sq km 107 (of 153, 70%)

Herero

foraging, farming, crafts, livestock

!Xangwa

(Qangwa)

NG 3, 5,760 sq km 416 (of 833, 50%),

Herero, Tawana

foraging, farming, crafts, livestock /Xai/Xai

(Cgae Cgae)

NG 4, 9,293 sq km and access

to NG 5, 7,673 sq km (16,966

sq km total)

345 (of 431, 80%), Herero (Mbanderu)

foraging, farming, crafts, livestock

Chuchumuchu NG 1, 2,970 sq km 29 (of 289, 10%),

Mbukushu, Herero

foraging, farming, crafts, livestock //Kaudum

(Xaudum)

NG 1, 2,970 sq km 40 (of 162, 25%),

Mbukushu, Herero

foraging, farming, crafts, livestock

8 communities 33,369 sq km (6 CCHAs) 1,845 Ju/’hoansi,

3,371 total (55%) Note: Data obtained from the Remote Area Development Program, government of Botswana and

from Cassidy et al (2001:A-38, Table A.30) Three of these villages are gazetted (i.e recognized

by the Botswana government as official settlements): Nxau Nxau, !Xangwa, and /Xai/Xai, CCHA

= Community Controlled Hunting Area; there are also some Ju/’hoansi in Kauri, Gomare, and

No-kaneng

A baseline study of the status of the San in southern Africa, conducted under the

direction of James Suzman, provided important information on the human rights and

de-velopment issues throughout the southern African region (Suzman 2001a, b; Cassidy et al

2001; Robins et al 2001).

There is now greater interplay between research and development in southern

Af-rica Social scientists are engaging more directly in development-oriented, collaborative,

participatory research This kind of research has a number of positive benefits, including

maintaining close contacts between people on the ground and researchers, which helps

increase trust Also, local people have been able to see directly some of the benefits of

research, as was the case, for example, with San and other rural communities in south-ern Africa that received support for development projects and land claim efforts that they themselves identified as being of importance to them Social scientists and San have both provided information that has been useful in framing innovative development strategies, as seen, for example, in education and language training (Biesele and Hitchcock 2000)

A major difference between present and past research is that many of the current stud-ies are short-term in nature, while some past anthropological studstud-ies involved fieldwork that lasted for a year or more at a time Some of the recent studies are also consultancy-based rather than participant observation-consultancy-based, meaning that the government research-ers use questionnaires, and the research generally does not go much beyond short-term visits with questions being asked through translators The implication of these changes is that participant observation and the build-up of trust and reciprocity tend to be less likely Nevertheless, the short-term investigations are valuable in that they provide snapshots of situations facing San at particular points in time

San Responses to Outside Involvement and Global and Local Challenges

San groups, with the help of applied anthropology and NGOs, have become more orga-nized and active in working to secure their economic and cultural rights In the 1970s and 1980s, San were involved extensively with the political process, voting and seeking office

in national elections, establishing their own community councils and non-government or-ganizations, and dealing with government officials at the national, district, and local levels (Hitchcock and Holm 1993) Even so, they constantly face challenges on all levels, from the government, to demands by other ethnic groups wanting the use of their land, to main-taining cohesion among themselves

One of the most serious challenges to San land rights came from the Attorney General

of Botswana in the late 1970s In 1978, a legal opinion, issued by the litigation consultant

to the Attorney General’s Chambers regarding land rights of San, recognized the San’s right to hunt for sustenance, but labeled them as ‘true nomads,’ and misinterpreted no-madism as a lack of territoriality, and as such concluded that the San could have no rights

to land ownership (“Opinion in Re: Common Leases of Tribal Land”, Ministry of Local Government and Lands file 2/1/2)

In other words, the government’s main legal body had decided that the San could be denied land rights simply on the basis of their ethnic affiliation Some of the San who heard about the ruling said that they were deeply disturbed by the fact that Botswana, a state that prided itself on being democratic and multiracial, was taking a position that was reminis-cent of the apartheid policies of neighboring South Africa

Though the Botswana government was quick to disavow the position of its Litiga-tion Consultant, stressing that Botswana was a country which by law did not discriminate against anyone, the problem was that the ministry generally refused to overturn district-level land board decisions In response to this situation, the San engaged in a number of