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Thesis: Conservation for Whom? Telling Good Lies in the Development of Central Kalahari

Published on November 20, 2005 by lorenz Posted in Africa, anthropology in the news, development empowerment, ecology nature, journal articles / papers, San-bushmen, tourism

Anna Stadler from Linköping University, Department of Anthropology (Sweden) has conducted a study of the relocation of the G//ana and G/wi San from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in Botswana. Her essay discusses how conservation policies, development programs and eco-tourism projects have been implemented in the Central Kalahari, and the consequences these policies have had for the people who first inhabited of the area. Excerpts from the conclusion:

The Botswana government has encouraged the local inhabitants of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve to resettle, as the San has been accused of poaching, and it is claimed that the tourists who come to Central Kalahari wish to see unspoiled wilderness. (…) As the San are being removed from the reserve, and more tourists are brought in, the area’s attraction as a reserve seems to have only to do with its value as a resource for tourism.

(…)

Prejudice, discrimination and racism still stand in the way for development in Botswana. In the space of a few years, Botswana has been transformed into one of Africa’s richest countries, with an economic growth that has prompted a massive social change. In wealthy Botswana, hunting and gathering are clear indicators of poverty. The solution to this poverty is believed to be assimilation into the dominant Botswana society.

Having the apartheid regime of neighbouring South Africa in thought, at independence the Botswana regime decided to ignore any cultural differences among its people. Black or white, cattle-owner or huntergatherer, everybody was to be treated as if they were the same. Consequently, poverty, not discrimination, was seen to be the main problem of the San. The relocation-program has thus a lot to do with the governments attempt to assimilate a people they regard as being “backward”.

>> read the whole thesis

To improve literacy rates: Through the desert with a mobile camel library

Published on November 1, 2005 by lorenz Posted in Africa, anthropology in the news, development empowerment

(via GlobalVoices)Fascinating photo story by Rashid Farah on BBC News of librarians who travel the Kenyan desert with a mobile camel library to improve literacy rates in the north-east: “A static library would be of no use to nomads and so instead we follow them, wherever they go”, Rashid Farah writes:

We start early in the morning and work Monday to Thursday. Each box contains 200 books. One camel carries two boxes of books. Another carries the tent and the third one carries our things. We have nine camels – three caravans. From our two headquarters, Garissa and Wajir, the caravans go to 12 different sites.

>> continue to Photo journal: Kenyan camel library

(via GlobalVoices)Fascinating photo story by Rashid Farah on BBC News of librarians who travel the Kenyan desert with a mobile camel library to improve literacy rates in the north-east: "A static library would be of no use to nomads and…

“We have a huge responsibility to give back to the places we study from”

Published on October 20, 2005 by lorenz Posted in Africa, anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, development empowerment, ethics

“We have a huge responsibility to give back to the places we study from,” anthropology professor Sharon Hutchinson says in a portrait on the website of the University of Winston-Madison. She has increasingly designed her courses to help students think through moral and practical dilemmas. For 25 years, Hutchinson has been involved in the southern Sudan as an anthropologist and human rights activist >> continue (link updated)

SEE ALSO:

Review of her book “Nuer Dilemmas: Coping with Money, War and the State” (Australian Journal of Anthropology) (link updated)

Challenges of Providing Anthropological Expertise: On the conflict in Sudan

Anthropology in a Time of Crisis. A Note from Nepal

"We have a huge responsibility to give back to the places we study from," anthropology professor Sharon Hutchinson says in a portrait on the website of the University of Winston-Madison. She has increasingly designed her courses to help students think…

American Ethnologist – New book reviews on Indian Resurgence in Brazil, Anthropology of Britain, Race and Transnationalism

Published on September 11, 2005 by lorenz Posted in Africa, anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, books, Europe, indigenous people / minorities, Latin- and Central America, migration, music, Native American, Northern America, Us and Them

The August reviews of the journal American Ethnologist are now online.

Among them we’ll find:

Mapping Yoruba Networks: Power and Agency in the Making of Transnational Communities. By: Kamari Maxine Clarke
Kamari Clarke is an Afro-Canadian who joins several African American anthropologists in examining how Africa and African heritage are understood by contemporary African American communities. Clarke exemplifies the best of 21st-century anthropology as she offers an insider’s sympathy without romanticism, step-back objectivity without arrogance. Clarke presents multisited research among “Yoruba” and Yoruba in South Carolina and Nigeria. >> continue

British Subjects: An Anthropology of Britain. Edited by Nigel Rapport
The articles address a wide range of topics, including the royal family (Anne Rowbottom), the London ballet (Helena Wulff), the postindustrial landscape of a former mining village (Andrew Dawson), British Quakers (Peter Collins), and Rapport’s own literarily inflected work on the worldview from a British village. The collection reflects a view of Britain as largely white, tranquil, and middle class >> continue

Racial Revolutions: Antiracism and Indian Resurgence in Brazil. By Jonathan W. Warren
Jonathan Warren examines the shift in which people who might once have claimed mixed-race status instead reconstruct themselves as “post-traditional” Indians. Simply because Warren explores qualitatively Brazil’s contemporary indigenous resurgence, Racial Revolutions is a must read. >> continue

Latino Crossings: Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and the Politics of Race and Citizenship. By Nicholas De Genova and Anna Y. Ramos-Zayas
This book represents a unique collaboration between two anthropologists who did fieldwork separately in Chicago during the 1990s. >> continue

Right to Rock: The Black Rock Coalition and the Cultural Politics of Race. By Maureen Mahon
Right to Rock focuses on the Black Rock Coalition (BRC), founded in 1985 as a network of African American musicians “sick and tired of being sick and tired” from the frustration of racial segregation within the music industry. >> continue

>> all August 2005 book reviews

The August reviews of the journal American Ethnologist are now online.

Among them we'll find:

Mapping Yoruba Networks: Power and Agency in the Making of Transnational Communities. By: Kamari Maxine Clarke
Kamari Clarke is an Afro-Canadian who joins several African American anthropologists in…

Taking American Race Relations on the Road…to Africa / Rituals in Ghana / Men and Masculinities in Africa

Published on August 26, 2005 by lorenz Posted in Africa, anthropology in the news, books, gender, journal articles / papers, Us and Them

The African Studies Quarterly is an Open Access Online Journal for African Studies.

In their recent issue there’s an article by anthropologist Rebecca Gearhart on Taking American Race Relations on the Road…to Africa:

“As an anthropologist who leads undergraduates to East Africa, I am in hot pursuit of a way to help my students avoid taking the particular way in which Americans understand race with them to Africa. So far, I have been unsuccessful in prying my students loose from the color-coded framework that has organized race relations for them throughout their lives. American notions of race often become obstacles to understanding how social relationships are negotiated outside of the American context. (…) Social relationships in Kenya are not defined by skin color the way they are in America. From a Kenyan perspective, “race” might be translated as: cultural heritage, first language, home district, family name, profession, and/or ethnic affiliation.”

>> continue

Their recent issue has lots of interesting book reviews, among others Joseph Adjaye’s ethnography “Boundaries of Self and Other in Ghanaian Popular Culture”. Adjaye studies his own society:

Joseph Adjaye offers us an inspiring ethnography of several rituals among the Akan, Krobo, and Bono in Ghana. The book offers a vivid impression of the (post)colonial transformations of libations, funerals, naming ceremonies, female initiation practices and two festivals (Bakatue and Apoo), which the author tries to explain by using and refining different theoretical approaches. The strength of this book is situated in the author’s personal experiences. As the eldest son in an Akan family, he has to take up specific rules during rituals.

>> continue

Another book review: Men and Masculinities in Modern Africa. Edited by Lisa A. Lindsay and Stephan F. Miescher:

“This book is the first collection of its kind to focus on the practices of masculinities especially in West Africa. Covering early colonial period through post-independence, the editors and contributors discuss how masculinities have been constructed and contested in sub-Saharan Africa. The book challenges stereotypes of African men as inferior and victims of colonialism.”

>> continue

The African Studies Quarterly is an Open Access Online Journal for African Studies.

In their recent issue there's an article by anthropologist Rebecca Gearhart on Taking American Race Relations on the Road...to Africa:

"As an anthropologist who leads undergraduates to East…