Book contents
- Bushmen
- Bushmen
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Preface
- Pronunciation and Orthography
- 1 Bushmen
- 2 The Politics of Indigeneity
- 3 How Far Back Can We Go?
- 4 Discovery and Destruction of the /Xam
- 5 The !Xoõ and Their Neighbours
- 6 G/wi, G//ana and the Central Kalahari
- 7 Naro
- 8 Ju/’hoansi or !Kung
- 9 Hai//om
- 10 Bushmen of the Okavango
- 11 Sharing the Land with Others
- 12 Conclusions
- References
- Index
- References
11 - Sharing the Land with Others
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 July 2019
- Bushmen
- Bushmen
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Preface
- Pronunciation and Orthography
- 1 Bushmen
- 2 The Politics of Indigeneity
- 3 How Far Back Can We Go?
- 4 Discovery and Destruction of the /Xam
- 5 The !Xoõ and Their Neighbours
- 6 G/wi, G//ana and the Central Kalahari
- 7 Naro
- 8 Ju/’hoansi or !Kung
- 9 Hai//om
- 10 Bushmen of the Okavango
- 11 Sharing the Land with Others
- 12 Conclusions
- References
- Index
- References
Summary
Bushmen are not alone in the Kalahari. They are not even the majority people there. Rather, Bushman communities frequently share their land and its resources with Ovambo, Herero, Khoekhoe, Tswana, whites, ‘Coloured people’, Basters and many others. Even these groups are diverse in several ways, not only in traditional lifestyles (herder, rancher, white-collar worker and so on), but also in terms of social class and education. The Kalahari happens to be one of the least populous regions of the earth. Yet the environments are fragile, water is limited and activities like livestock rearing require lots more land than other existences. My earliest intention as a field researcher had been to study ethnicity, and in this chapter I return to that topic at a theoretical level. There are more than 200 ethnic group names in the literature, and many are synonyms (for example, there are at least 23 labels for the !Xoõ, and one of these, ≠Hoã, is also the name for another small group). My goal here is explore what it means to adhere to any of these labels.
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- BushmenKalahari Hunter-Gatherers and Their Descendants, pp. 157 - 165Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019