At Home in the Okavango: White Batswana Narratives of Emplacement and Belonging 9781782387749

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At Home in the Okavango

At Home in the Okavango White Batswana Narratives of Emplacement and Belonging

Catie Gressier

berghahn NEW YORK • OXFORD www.berghahnbooks.com

First published in 2015 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com © 2015, 2018 Catie Gressier First paperback edition published in 2018

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gressier, Catie. At home in the Okavango: white Batswana narratives of emplacement and belonging / by Catie Gressier. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-78238-773-2 (hardback) – ISBN 978-1-78533-753-6 (paperback) – ISBN 978-1-78238-774-9 (ebook) 1. Whites--Race identity--Botswana--Okavango River Delta. 2. Whites--Cultural assimilation--Botswana--Okavango River Delta. 3. Tourism--Social aspects--Botswana-Okavango River Delta. 4. Okavango River Delta (Botswana)--Race relations. I. Title. DT2520.O53G74 2015 305.809’06883--dc23 2015002056 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-78238-773-2 (hardback) ISBN 978-1-78533-753-6 (paperback) ISBN 978-1-78238-774-9 (ebook)

For Rosemary Gressier

Contents

Mapsviii Acknowledgementsix Introduction  Waiting for the Flood

1

Chapter 1  Connections to the Natural Environment 

39

Chapter 2  Photographic Tourism, Emplacement and Belonging

74

Chapter 3  Hunting and Ambiguity in Belonging

112

Chapter 4  Belonging and the Nation

146

Chapter 5  Race Relations and Community Ties in the Okavango

175

Conclusion  Making a Plan to Belong

213

Bibliography219 Index231

Maps

Map 1 Africa Map 2

Botswana Administrative Districts

Map 3 Northern Botswana Map 4 Northern Botswana Land Use

xi xii xiii 57

Acknowledgements

My gratitude firstly goes to the wonderful people of the Okavango for sharing their experiences, insights and friendship so unreservedly. Living in the Okavango was a constant adventure, and Maun’s residents not only participated in the research with unstinting generosity, but also taught me a great deal about the meaning of community. Confidentiality prevents me from thanking the many individuals and families whose contributions were immense, so I must be content to send my deepest gratitude to all. For profoundly helpful feedback on earlier drafts, I am eternally indebted to Michèle Dominy, Ørnulf Gulbrandsen, Bob Hitchcock, Nick Harney, Taz Phillips and Jackie Solway. For mentorship, encouragement and friendship over the years, I am grateful to Greg Acciaioli, Rita Armstrong, Victoria Burbank, Jean Comaroff, Katie Glaskin, Tammy Kohn, Mitchell Low, Monica Minnegal, Yasmine Musharbash, Michael Pinches, David Trigger and most particularly to Nick Harney, whose support has been profoundly generous and invaluable. Thanks also to Molly Mosher and the fantastic Berghahn team. My thanks to the Government of Botswana for kindly permitting me to conduct the fieldwork, which was funded by an Australian Postgraduate Award and an Ernst and Evelyn Shacklock Scholarship at the University of Western Australia. The writing process was enabled by a McArthur Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Melbourne, for which I am very grateful. Additionally, the publication was supported by the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Arts Publication Subsidy Scheme. While none of the chapters is an exact reproduction, material from them has been published elsewhere. The theoretical discussion surrounding the autochthony concept in Chapter One, and some of the historical material in Chapter Five, appeared in ‘Experiential Autochthony in Northern Botswana’, Anthropological Forum: A Journal of Social Anthropology and Comparative Sociology 24(1): 1–20 (2014). The vignette in the opening of Chapter Three, and some of the historical discussion in Chapter Five, was

x  •  At Home in the Okavango

published in ‘Safaris into Subjectivity: White Locals, Black Tourists, and the Politics of Belonging in the Okavango Delta, Botswana’, Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 18(4): 352–76 (2011). The description of the hunt and parts of the discussion on hunting, conservation and community development in Chapter Four were published in ‘An Elephant in the Room: Okavango Safari Hunting as Ecotourism?’ Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology 79(2): 193–214 (2014). Finally, my gratitude and love to Alex, Abbie, Mum, Jen, Fel and the rest of my wonderful family and friends for their patience and support.

Map 1  Africa Source: Ngami Data Services.

Map 2  Botswana Administrative Districts Source: University of Texas Libraries.

Map 3  Northern Botswana Source: Ngami Data Services.

Introduction Waiting for the Flood

K In Botswana’s sparsely populated Ngamiland district, bordered to the south, east and west by the harsh expanses of the Kalahari Desert, floodwaters travel annually from the highlands of Angola, arriving in the region’s hottest, driest season. On reaching the panhandle, where no rain has brought relief for months, the floodwaters fan out, filling the channels and floodplains of the Okavango Delta, and transforming the desert into a verdant wildlife sanctuary. The floodwaters and the vegetation they support attract a huge diversity of Africa’s iconic fauna, and in the dry season hundreds of thousands of mammals, birds and reptiles – one of the highest concentrations of wildlife in the world – converge on the delta. In the past few decades, the abundant wildlife and exquisite beauty of the landscape have attracted high-paying international tourists, around whom the region’s economy is based. Coffee table books and tourist marketing enthuse in extravagant language over this ‘miracle oasis’, praising the ‘unspoilt wilderness’ of one of Africa’s ‘last remaining Edens’. In this arid nation where rain is so scarce and revered that the national currency carries its name, pula, the coming of the flood in the midst of the intense seasonal dryness does seem nothing short of miraculous. In the sprawling village of Maun, the region’s capital, locals talk of little else in the weeks preceding the flood’s arrival. Each edition of the Okavango’s weekly newspaper, the Ngami Times, has front-page coverage of the level of the flood. Anyone who has travelled from the upper reaches of the river is quizzed extensively on the exact progress of the waters. National

2  •  At Home in the Okavango

Geographic writer Kennedy Warne (2004: 61) neatly captures the central role the flood plays in people’s lives: ‘“The English discuss the weather; we discuss the water”, one [Maun local] told me. “Before it comes, we drink beer and talk about when it will arrive. When it’s here, we drink beer and talk about how much has come. When it’s gone, we just drink beer and feel sad”’. Much beer was consumed on the hot Sunday afternoon in June 2007 when I accompanied a group of Maun residents up the dry Boro riverbed to check on the flood’s progress. Six carloads drove out of town along the rough dirt road that winds its way through the mopane scrub (Colophospermum mopane). The cars held a diversity of nationalities and people of all ages, as is typical of a Maun gathering. There were a number of expatriates from South Africa and various parts of Europe; there were Batswana (citizens of Botswana), including a MoNgwaketse woman and her MuYeyi husband; and there were white Batswana – the subjects of this study – including, among others, two brothers, Richard and Tony, who were to become key interlocutors in my research. We drove until we found water, and the first tentative rivulets of the flood elicited great excitement from the group. Tony piled all the children into the back of his Land Cruiser and took them further upriver to where the water was deep enough to fish. Richard started a fire and people began to braai (barbeque) beef and wors (sausage), which was washed down with great quantities of beer and spirits. A number of other groups from Maun drove past during the afternoon in search of the floodwaters and weekend revelry. Many stopped to greet and talk to members of our group on their way past. The more that was drunk during the course of the day, the more animated the talking, joking and storytelling became. Recounting narratives is central to Maun culture, and white Batswana hone their skills in endless drinking and storytelling sessions. Childhoods spent in the bush among the wildlife, work in the tourism industry and the prevailing frontier culture, where risk-taking and adventure are par for the course, provide endless material for their rich narrative culture. White Motswana Luke, for example, had everyone in hysterics recounting the time he was camping on a small island deep in the delta in the course of a fishing trip. He woke in the morning after a big night drinking whisky to find a lioness fast asleep in the shade of his tent. He was aching to urinate, and he waited and waited, but the lioness did not budge. He eventually had to try and relieve himself through the gauze of the tent, which was disastrously unsuccessful, and he spent the next miserable hours in a baking hot, urine-soaked tent, waiting for the lioness to move on.

Introduction • 3

The stories then turned to childhood calamities. Richard told of one afternoon in his school holidays when he was relaxing in a hammock. His brother Tony came walking past and said ‘eh, Richie, don’t move’, and he looked down to see a bright green tree snake slithering under his hammock. Within minutes the brothers had caught the snake and made a plan to cook and eat it, curious as to what such a creature might taste like. Their father and stepmother were out shopping in town, so the boys skinned the snake, found a big pot and, with much difficulty due to the nerves that kept the snake wriggling and twitching long after it was dead, crammed it into the pot and closed the lid. Just at that moment their parents arrived home, and their stepmother – who considered the kitchen strictly her domain – came storming in to investigate what the brothers were doing. She lifted the lid and the snake exploded out of the pot like a coiled spring. Being fresh from Johannesburg and new to rural Botswana, their stepmother was both terrified and furious. She took the dramatic measure of throwing the pot and the knife into the garbage, a very unusual act of wastefulness in Africa, and forbade the boys from ever touching her cooking utensils again. Storytelling is central to white citizens’ sociality and is an important means of asserting and performing senses of belonging to the Okavango. Through their descriptions of emplaced events and interactions with endemic species – and particularly through their emphasis on humour above risk and danger – their intimate knowledge of and connection to place is reinforced. The references to well-known people and places, along with the imagery, expression and language used, evoke subtle layers of meaning and emotion that bolster the cohesion of the group. In this way, storytelling and joking are central to the experience and performance of senses of belonging. Some hours and many stories later that afternoon, a Motswana man approached our group. He had a bottle of wine with a screwdriver sticking out of it, which he was having trouble opening. We all laughed with him about his dilemma, and one of the expatriate women walked with him down to her car to try and find a corkscrew. She was sitting in the car with the man standing beside her when he pulled a large knife from his pocket with which to try to open the bottle. Suddenly, her boyfriend – a white citizen from our group, who had been upriver playing Frisbee when the man approached us – ran shouting to the man with the knife, before aggressively pushing him away from his girlfriend. He had seen the knife being pulled and, not knowing the situation, had falsely assumed that the man was attacking his girlfriend. A number of our group immediately ran to the car to diffuse the situation. The friends of the Motswana man with the

4  •  At Home in the Okavango

knife also rushed to the scene. Everyone was stressed and agitated and talking on top of one another. One of the Batswana men expressed his anger, claiming that white people always assume black people are criminals. On hearing this, one of the white women became very distressed and tried to explain that while it was an overreaction on the part of the white man, it had been a genuine misunderstanding. She ended up in tears with the frustration of being accused of being racist, when she defines herself in starkly oppositional terms. The same Motswana man then started asking the MoNgwaketse woman and her MuYeyi husband in Setswana, the national language, why they chose to spend time with racist white people. They responded trying to calm him down and assure him this was not the case. After several minutes of heated discussion, the Batswana men returned to their car and drove away up river. The white citizen who had misinterpreted the pulling of the knife was mortified. He was filled with regret for having suspected the man of ill intent and particularly for pushing him. As a man of liberal political views and general respect for his fellow citizens, he was deeply distressed that the men had assumed his actions were founded on racist beliefs. Everyone in the group was upset and uncomfortable. They talked about the confrontation for some time, with different people describing their perception of events and how the misunderstanding had transpired. The man involved felt his actions were purely the result of his being intoxicated, which he claimed had led him to act rapidly and instinctively without thinking. He fervently denied that he had acted out of any sort of racialised assumptions, despite the accusations of the Motswana man and his friends. Approximately an hour later, the Batswana men involved in the incident drove back to where our group was sitting. Everyone was calm by then, and the white Motswana man responsible went to the car and spoke with the men. He apologised for his mistake and shook hands with the man he had pushed, before the group drove away back towards Maun. While the situation ended peaceably, all who were present were left with a sense of discomfort and unease. Despite the intensity of the events, I seldom heard the matter discussed after that day. This incident was the only of its kind that I witnessed in my fourteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in the Okavango. While the events that unfolded that afternoon were anomalous to the highly valued peaceful public culture, they evidence the presence of underlying interracial tensions. While many white Batswana deny any sense of insecurity regarding their place in the nation, they are certainly aware that they are not considered to be authentic Batswana by all other citizens. Living among

Introduction • 5

the many white Zimbabwean immigrants who have lost their farms and homes serves as a constant reminder that belonging is never guaranteed. Yet, despite this, the majority of white citizens identify strongly as Batswana and claim to feel very much at home in the Okavango. The inherent insecurity of being a white minority in postcolonial southern Africa has, I suggest, led white Batswana, whether consciously or inadvertently, to develop a range of cultural values and practices that serve to strengthen their senses of belonging. The incident with the knife is instructive in this regard and brings to light the core issues surrounding emplacement and belonging for the Okavango’s white citizens. To begin with, the collective obsession with the natural environment – in this case manifest in the celebration of the flood – serves as a reinforcement and performance of connections to place. The many stories told and retold of specific incidences occurring in the bush affirm and display an intimate familiarity with the Okavango. In addition, white citizens’ professed aversion to racism, and attempts to foster good relationships across the broader community, can be read as efforts to ensure an ongoing welcome in the nation. White Batswana construct collective identity against white settler-descendants in South Africa and Zimbabwe, many of whom they consider to be disrespectful in their treatment of Africans. They frequently claim that Botswana generally, and the Okavango particularly, is unique in southern Africa in regard to what they see as positive interracial dynamics. They maintain that the far less violent and intrusive colonial history of Botswana has resulted in a culture of mutual respect between black and white. While the incident described above belies their desire for racism to be absent in the Okavango, the fact that this heated encounter was resolved through discussion and negotiation is significant. The public culture of the Okavango’s white Batswana is to suppress and critique behaviours perceived as racist. This practice accords with the ‘popular obsession with the state of kagiso and the centrality of the practices of reconciliation’ among the broader national community (Gulbrandsen 2012: 174). Kagiso refers to peace and harmony, while the related term kagisano means staying together in peace. Within Tswana cosmology, kagiso is causally linked with the much-valued emotional state of coolness that in turn ensures prosperity and health for people, animals and crops. ‘This means that kagiso is not only the concern of parties directly engaged in a conflict. Conflicts are indeed always a collective concern because they give rise to destructive “heat” (mogote) that threatens all’ (Gulbrandsen 2012: 174). The sincere distress shown by the individuals involved in the incident that afternoon, and their reluctance to discuss the matter subsequently, are best understood in light of the high value placed on peaceful

6  •  At Home in the Okavango

coexistence, and the discomfort precipitated by forced recognition of the presence of racially based tensions. In a continent stricken with interracial and ethnic unease, where a sense of insecurity pervades many white populations, white citizens’ claims to positive community connections and deep senses of belonging raise a number of questions that I explore in this book: What elements constitute and enable belonging and emplacement for white Batswana of the Okavango? How do they connect to the social and physical environments of their birth and upbringing despite or, indeed, as a result of nationalist discourses and identity politics? How are individual and collective identities constructed to augment belonging? To what extent are the strident claims to belonging an outcome of insecurity and an active means of strengthening ties? What is the influence of their work in the safari tourism industry on their place within the nation? In sum, in this book I explore experiential autochthony for white Batswana through analysing the day-to-day processes of emplacement within both the physical and social environments through which individuals develop a sense of belonging to their homeland. This study is intended to coalesce with the whiteness literature’s endeavour of challenging notions of whiteness as either universal or as an ‘empty cultural space’ through fleshing out the particular cultural values and practices of one white community (Frankenberg 1993: 192). Through this case study I aim also to contribute to related literatures on settler cultures, the anthropology of place and tourism studies.

Naming White Batswana Before discussing the theoretical underpinnings of this research, a brief note on nomenclature is required. In postcolonial Botswana, the use of the terms Batswana (plural) and Motswana (singular) extends beyond the original signification of those of Tswana ethnicity to refer to all citizens of Botswana, regardless of their ethnic or racial background. White citizens consistently and unselfconsciously use these terms when referring to themselves. A white Motswana would normally refer to him or herself simply as a Motswana, without the racially specific designation ‘white’, and yet the problem with using this alone is that despite generations of living in the region, white citizens still unquestionably remain a discrete community. This is both in terms of their cultural difference to other ethnic groups, but also in the sense that white citizens, with few exceptions, marry and have children with other white people. (They are not endogamous, however, as the very small population of white

Introduction • 7

citizens, in conjunction with the high numbers of resident expatriates, means that for the most part white citizens marry other white people not originally from the Okavango.) I avoid using the term European, as white Batswana see themselves very much as African, rendering this geographic identifier inappropriate. My research is specific to the white citizens of the Okavango, and I must emphasise that claims made are not applicable to whites living elsewhere in Botswana. My reference to white Batswana throughout the book should, consequently, be read as shorthand solely evoking this regional community. I also wish to emphasise that while those to whom I refer with the collective term ‘white Batswana’ share common cultural values and practices, the group is constituted by great internal diversity. This, I hope, will be made clear through the divergent experiences and perspectives of the individuals described. Regarding Batswana more broadly, I specify the particular ethnic community from which an individual or group derives where possible. There are instances, however, such as in the vignette above, where I do not know the particular background of an individual or group. In such cases I use the generic terms for citizens: ‘Mo/Batswana’. Batswana of all backgrounds frequently use the terms black and white and, as a result, in citing interlocutors and particularly in instances where race matters, I at times use the phrase ‘black’ Mo/Batswana. While the designations black and white are problematic and connote an essentialised notion of race, they are terms commonly utilised by my interlocutors. Rather than being used in a derogatory manner, however, the terms are seen by many Batswana as simple descriptors differentiating people who perceive themselves as belonging to discrete groups. In the social sciences it is accepted that race is less a fixed biological category than a historically contingent and socially constructed function of power, yet the concept has great tenacity in popular usage. Racial categories have been deeply internalised in southern Africa, where they are seen as biological facts, not arbitrary social constructs. Despite the emphasis on civic rather than ethnic citizenship, Batswana still strongly subscribe to racial identifications in distinguishing European- and African-derived peoples. Consequently, while I am concerned my usage could be construed as reinforcing a divisive form of categorisation, at times it is necessary to use these emic terms.

8  •  At Home in the Okavango

Theorising Autochthony While a cornerstone of anthropological research has been the study of indigenous people’s connections to the environments of their birth and upbringing, analogous studies for white populations in postcolonial Africa and other settler contexts have until recently been rare. This is certainly the case in Botswana where the various Bushmen- and Bantu-language groups have been subject to extensive anthropological research. These studies have been conducted by some of the discipline’s most renowned scholars, ranging from the classic works on the Tswana by Isaac Schapera (1970, 1947, 1938), to more recent research by Ørnulf Gulbrandsen (e.g., 2012) and Jean and John Comaroff (e.g., 1991, 1985), along with Richard Werbner’s (e.g., 2004) work on the Kalanga. The Kalahari has hosted an endless stream of anthropologists working with the Bushmen, including Richard Lee (1979; with Irven DeVore 1968), Lorna Marshall (1976), Edwin Wilmsen (1989), Alan Barnard (2007, 1992), Jacqueline Solway (2009, 2006, 2003, 2002), Megan Biesele (e.g., 2006), Sidsel Saugestad (2001) and Robert Hitchcock (2006, 2002, 1996). Solway (2006: 9), in fact, suggests that ‘the San are arguably the most thoroughly documented group in Africa’. With the exceptions of Russell and Russell’s (1979) ethnography of Afrikaners in Ghanzi, and Isaac Mazonde’s (1991) work on white pastoralists in the Tuli Block, Botswana’s white citizens have been largely overlooked by anthropologists. The relative absence of studies of settler communities’ connections to place is perhaps less an oversight than an indicator of an apprehensiveness concerning the recognition of the connections of settler-descendants to extra-European territories. Regardless of the complex politics, white citizens feel very strongly about their links to their African homes. For white Batswana, their sense of belonging is based less on a sense of historical connectedness or politically determined rights than on the much more prosaic experiences of daily life. Developing connections to the place of one’s formative years is, to a significant extent, an inevitable aspect of living and being in the world. Far from deterring a sense of connection, the construction of individuals or groups as outsiders often stimulates even more emphatic articulations of belonging, catalysing greater efforts to cement connections. In his article contending that autochthony is usefully understood as a form of capital, Hilgers (2011: 49) suggests that the ‘manipulation of belonging and the act of investing in this capital are ways, among others, of securitizing the conditions of life’. As such a conspicuous minority associated with histories of racialised privilege, there is insecurity inherent in white Batswana’s position within the nation

Introduction • 9

that informs their emphatic assertions of belonging. These sentiments are important to document and analyse. If a case can be made for looking at white citizens’ place within African nations, the question remains as to which analytical and discursive tools can best be employed to explore these connections. Much like indigeneity, meaning ‘born inside’, the term autochthony connotes nativeness and the connections between a people and their homeland. In its Athenian origins, autochthony evokes images of people born of the earth of their native lands (Rosivach 1987). Translated literally, autochthony refers to the connection between self and soil (in the Greek ‘auto’ refers to self and ‘khthon’ to land). It encapsulates notions of unique relationships to land that engender loyalty, high levels of patriotism and a shared bond and sense of community among citizens. From its earliest usage, autochthony has had political overtones and, in the Athenian context, ‘autochthony was used as part of democratic ideology, asserting the political equality of all citizens and the superiority of even the humblest citizen to any non-citizen’ (Rosivach 1987: 305). This has strong parallels in the rhetoric of the Botswana state where notions of autochthony and citizenship are conflated through the decree that all citizens –including those who happen to be white – are indigenous and entitled to privileges denied to those constructed as outsiders (more on this below). Leaning on the work of Olaf Zenker (2011), I utilise autochthony as an overarching concept encompassing the ties of people to their homelands. Zenker (2011) compellingly argues that autochthony discourses are constructed as either individualised or collectivised; the former being appropriate for contexts whereby the individual is understood as born to a territory, which, as a consequence, attaches them to a group/nation, much as in the schema of civic citizenship. This Zenker (2011) contrasts with discourses of collectivised autochthony, wherein the causal logic is reversed through a strong sense of group identity and shared descent legitimising claims to a territory, which in turn provide the (somewhat backgrounded) individual their rights, as is the case in ethnic models of citizenship. Zenker (2011: 75) suggests, therefore, that indigeneity is a rather specific form of collectivised autochthony: Widely accepted working definitions of the term “indigenous people” within the international discourse of politics, law and (at least partly) anthropology emphasize four criteria, namely first-comer, non-dominance, cultural difference and self ascription (Saugestad, 2001: 43). These definitions reveal “indigeneity” to be a variant of collectivized-autochthonous ethnicity that has been marginalized by dominating later-comers aligning

10  •  At Home in the Okavango

with, and often running, the state, in which this discrimination has taken place.

White Batswana are clearly not indigenous, and yet the broader concept of autochthony is highly evocative and useful in an analytical rendering of their relationships to their home in northern Botswana. In grappling with questions of discursive representation, I have considered removing the concepts of autochthony and indigeneity altogether. A politically less contentious means to explore white belonging would perhaps be to focus on the meaning of citizenship. Within days of being in the Okavango I knew the citizenship status of every individual I had met, as it arose in conversation so frequently. The very small proportion of citizens to expatriates, the desirability of the Okavango as a place to live and work, the stringency of the nation’s immigration policies and the substantial benefits accrued to citizens, all render citizenship status highly significant. However, citizenship has proved contentious and highly problematic in numerous African nations, as cogently demonstrated in the volume edited by Sara Dorman, Daniel Hammett and Paul Nugent (2007). Botswana scholar, Deborah Durham (2002: 139), goes so far as describing citizenship as ‘one of the most vexing problems in Africa’. Such studies demonstrate that while citizenship purports to confer ‘equal protection of the laws, guarantees of a right to belonging, entitlement to participation, and full access to the social provisions of the state’, in many instances it privileges some citizens while alienating others (Young 2007: 254). Moreover, discourses of autochthony permeate those of citizenship, ensuring that those deemed ‘native’ are benefited, while ‘strangers’ are denied (Hickey 2007: 83). Along with these theoretical complexities, while white Batswana are certainly attached to Botswana as a whole, their connectedness is first and foremost to the specific region of the Okavango. As a result, the nationalist connotations of citizenship fail to properly encapsulate the empirical situation. By contrast, autochthony is a rich concept that has at its core connections of a people to the land. For white Batswana, birth and upbringing in the Okavango and close ties to the land are absolutely central to their identity, rendering autochthony a desirable discursive tool through which to explore their position. In reviewing de la Cadena and Starn’s edited volume, Indigenous Experience Today, Trigger and Dalley (2010: 57) suggest that research is required to address the question of whether, over time, discourses and sentiments of indigeneity are established in those groups considered to be ‘settlers, migrants, and visitors’. This question arises on account of the volume’s suggestion that indigeneity is best understood as fluid: it is conceived by the various authors as ‘a process; a series of encounters;

Introduction • 11

a structure of power; a set of relationships; a matter of becoming, in short, and not a fixed state of being’ (de la Cadena and Starn 2007: 11). Consequently, Trigger and Dalley (2010: 57) suggest that there is theoretical value in testing the indigeneity concept in settler-descendant contexts. My investigation attempts to contribute to this emergent area by theorising autochthony in terms of relationships and processes of connection, rather than as a static identity category. My conceptual apparatus has resonance with scholars who have similarly applied the term to European peoples. Zenker (2009) explores autochthony in Northern Ireland; Kenrick (2011) compares Scottish crofters with their deep connections and historical ties to land with indigenous peoples; while Ceuppens (2011) describes the mobilisation of the term by the Flemish majority in Belgium. While indigeneity and autochthony have come to be associated with non-European peoples, it is worth bearing in mind that the concept of autochthony is European (Greek) in origin, and consequently has strong cultural resonance within many European-derived communities. No matter how ripe for re-conceptualisation the concept of autochthony may be, the use of the term in relation to European descendants in Africa remains problematic. Colonial histories of structural inequality, appropriation of land by settlers and the violent domination of African people reached their zenith in South Africa under apartheid and have had destructive echoes in much of southern Africa, particularly in the areas of present day Zimbabwe, Zambia and Namibia. As ethnic minorities implicated in histories of colonialism, racism and the attendant economic and social privileges, the various white populations’ senses of belonging to the African nations of their birth are often challenged, and unsurprisingly so. On account of these histories, autochthony is not a neutral term in Africa and has been mobilised to differentiate between the colonisers and colonised. While it is not popularly utilised in English-speaking nations such as Botswana, it is highly politicised in the Francophone countries of Africa (Ceuppens and Geschiere 2005: 386). Yet, its appropriateness for the particular relationships to place among the white Batswana makes it a desirable concept to employ. Within the context of my research, a pragmatic way around this problem is to differentiate between analytic applications of the term as either political or experiential. Experiential autochthony I use to refer broadly to the relationship of an individual to their homeland. While experiential autochthony certainly encompasses the politics of belonging, it is distinguishable from much of the recent literature on autochthony discourses that places its emphasis very much on political identities. This latter application I refer to as political autochthony.

12  •  At Home in the Okavango

Political Autochthony Political autochthony refers to the mobilisation of notions of insiders and outsiders, natives and foreigners, within the politics of belonging. In the past few decades, as globalisation has increased the flow of people and goods across borders, an increasing obsession with boundary maintenance has led to the politicisation of autochthony and belonging throughout the world. The majority of anthropological work on autochthony in the African context explores the political mobilisation of the concept, describing how identity politics and discourses of belonging and exclusion are invoked as a means of access or denial of rights to political power and economic resources (e.g., Geschiere 2009; Dorman, Hammett and Nugent 2007). In describing the politics of belonging in Cameroon, Geschiere and Nyamnjoh (2000: 448) suggest that: autochthony can best be studied as a trope without a substance of its own. It can be used for defining the Self against the Other on all sorts of levels and in all sorts of ways. Autochthony discourses tend to be so supple that they can even accommodate a switch from one Other to another.

In this interpretation autochthony is seen as a political tool; as a relational trope with shifting criteria, rather than as something definable with substance. This is the point at which experiential autochthony departs.

Experiential Autochthony While mobilisations of notions of political autochthony are critical to document and analyse, the term can be analytically useful in additional ways. Beyond the exclusionary politics encapsulated in political autochthony, experiential autochthony refers to the primary and practical experiences of individuals or groups in relation to the social and physical worlds in which they are born and raised. Experiential autochthony encompasses the kinds of connections forged between people and their homelands that are in many cases inevitable, and occur despite, albeit in dialectic with, the politics of belonging. These include familiarity with the natural and social environments, the knowledge and skills developed within these contexts, and the emotional and spiritual connections to place and the community. This usage of autochthony by no means excludes the politics of belonging. As Yuval-Davis (2004: 216) argues, ‘[c] onstructing boundaries and borders that differentiate between those who belong, and those who do not, determines and colours the meaning of the

Introduction • 13

particular belonging’. In other words, inherent to experiential autochthony is a community’s experiences within the unfolding identity politics of a nation. Yet, experiential autochthony’s utility is in that it allows a conceptual space to provide another dimension to the political domain. Experiential autochthony allows for both an exploration of the subjective experiences of white Batswana, and for a shift from a focus on the collective to the individual. It resonates with Zenker’s (2011: 71) conceptualisation of individualised autochthony, which foregrounds the individual’s connection to a territory in the present moment. Similarly, in her research into a sense of belonging among settler-descendant Australians, Miller (2003b: 415–16) suggests we need to look beyond the politics to the personal. Belonging, she argues, is not something that is given as a right or bestowed as a privilege. Nor is belonging something that is tied in any way to land ownership or length of residency. It is not inherited or accumulated. Nor is it something that simply happens to us. Rather, it is an existential opportunity – an opportunity that presents itself, not merely to a chosen few, but to all Australians, whether they are non-Aboriginal or Aboriginal, native-born, refugee or visitor. The responsibility for actualising the possibility of belonging remains the task of each and every one of us.

Thus while political autochthony for the most part concerns itself with the collective, experiential autochthony is particularly useful in exploring the experiences of individuals. This is particularly pertinent for minority groups, including settler-descendants, who persist in developing strong connections to their homelands, despite not being the ‘natives of choice’, as Handler (1990: 8) puts it. Informing my use of the autochthony concept is the debate in recent years surrounding the closely related term, indigeneity. Adam Kuper (2003) triggered much heated discussion through his critique of the category ‘indigenous peoples’ on the basis of its mobilisation in essentialist terms. Kuper (2003: 389) suggests ‘indigeneity’ has a detrimental impact through its utilisation as a euphemism for ideas of the primitive, while Solway (2006: 8) has warned of the risk of its conflation with notions of marginalisation and powerlessness. Moreover, both Kuper (2003: 391) and James Clifford (2001) critique the term’s definitional validity through pointing out that historical evidence suggests that many of the world’s socalled indigenous peoples have distant histories of migration. To this end, and in regard to concerns about the divisive and exclusionary potentials of the concept, Clifford (2001: 482) asserts the following:

14  •  At Home in the Okavango

An absolutist indigenism, where each distinct “people” strives to occupy an original bit of ground, is a frightening utopia. For it imagines relocation and ethnic cleansing on an unimaginable scale: a denial of all the deep histories of movement, urbanization, habitation, reindigenization, sinking roots, moving on, invading, mixing –the very stuff of human history. There must be, and in practice there are, many ways to conceive of “nativeness” in less absolute terms.

In light of these critiques, I use the term experiential autochthony in the sense of the processes and relationships within an individual’s connections to the places of his/her birth and upbringing, rather than looking for stable identity categories. My use cuts across ethnic specificity to describe an ontological set of processes and relationships. This opens up the applicability of the concept on an analytical level to those, such as migrants and minorities, who would not otherwise be considered under its banner. This challenges the correlation of autochthony with essential cultural or ethnic features, and with notions of marginalisation and primitiveness. It also displaces the links of autochthony with the deterministic criterion of descent, as individual experiences of birth and upbringing are given credence beyond genealogy. I hope it is clear that in proposing recognition of white Batswana experiential autochthony, I am neither suggesting any sort of competing claim to others’ belonging, nor suggesting that these ideas should be used as a platform for any sort of rights. Nor, indeed, are the white citizens themselves. White Batswana are not engaged in a ‘politics of recognition’ in Charles Taylor’s (1994) sense – namely, advocating for greater rights to collective identity and cultural expression in the public sphere – and they do not seek any rights or privileges beyond those they receive as citizens. Nor are they involved in the kinds of disputes that have led to articulations of settler connections to place within competing claims to land of indigenous people and settlers in Zimbabwe (Pilossof 2012; Rutherford 2004), Australia (Trigger 2003), New Zealand (Dominy 1995) and elsewhere. Yet, they feel very strongly about their status as native to the Okavango, and it is these sentiments that I wish to document and explore.

Emplacement and Belonging In discursively operationalising experiential autochthony among white Batswana, I rely heavily on two related concepts: emplacement and belonging. Emplacement I use to refer to the inevitable aspects of the relationships of people to the social and physical environments of their

Introduction • 15

birth and upbringing. It is important to emphasise my inclusion of social environments within this definition of emplacement. The spaces we are born into are necessarily peopled, and our understanding and perceptions of these places are determined to a large extent by the cultural patterns instilled by the people surrounding us (Casey 1996: 18; Ingold 1990: 220). Thus while emplacement studies tend to emphasise connections to place, I believe the culturally determined nature of these relationships necessitates the inclusion of the social environment within its conceptual reach. The notion of the inevitability of emplacement within my definition also requires comment. While directed by cultural patterns, I use emplacement to refer to those aspects of connections to the natural and social environments that are not matters of volition, but rather are inevitable outcomes of living and being in the world. Our cognitive, sensory and emotive experiences of our early environments are the foundations upon which we build meaning. Lowenthal (1985: 39) describes this in the context of memory and comprehension: The surviving past’s most essential and pervasive benefit is to render the present familiar … Without habit and the memory of past experience, no sight or sound would mean anything; we can perceive only what we are accustomed to. Environmental features and patterns are recognized as features and patterns because we share a history with them … The perceived identity of each scene and object stems from past acts and expectations, from a history of involvements.

This ‘history of involvement’ ensures that the place and people of our birth and upbringing are indelibly inscribed in our identities. As Setha Low (2003: 77) points out, the environments of our youth are ‘imprinted in our imaginations as given, even natural, and taken for granted’. The inevitability of emplacement means that it occurs regardless of the politics of belonging. Processes of emplacement ensure that white Batswana have familiarity with and knowledge about the African people and cultures they live alongside. In addition, they are familiar with and knowledgeable about the physical and natural environments of the Okavango’s settlements and wildlife areas, as well as the local climate, flora and fauna. Consequently, a certain level of connection for white Batswana to their nation is an automatic consequence of their upbringing. This is not to say that emplacement is the same for all people living in the same area. While there are strong patterns of common experiences leading to shared knowledge and skills, emplacement is very much contingent on individual experience.

16  •  At Home in the Okavango

It is also important to note that emplacement, like belonging, should not be conceptualised within a moral framework that suggests it is necessarily positive. The exclusionary implications of the politics of belonging and, in the same vein, the potentially negative implications of emplacement should be recognised. For instance, deep emplacement can lead to insecurity among white Batswana, who feel that their highly specialised skills within the Okavango environment, and the tight community structures characterised by high levels of interdependence and mutual support, can make starting a life elsewhere extremely daunting. This kind of outcome of deep emplacement suggests that it is important to avoid assuming it is always a beneficial ontological state. Related to emplacement is the concept of belonging. While emplacement refers to the inevitable aspects of relationships to the place and people of the homeland, belonging encompasses the more elusive senses of connection and acceptance, which are not only individually contingent, but are also entrenched within the politics of belonging. Belonging is a term that is constantly used, but difficult to define. Put simply, to belong is to have a positive sense of connectedness. How this is achieved and what it means for different people is, however, complex and divergent. Belonging is multifaceted and operates on numerous levels: from the subjective realm of individual emotions; to the social level of connections with others; to the structural level of political positioning. Intrinsic to the concept is the relationship between self and other. This other can be an individual, family, community, society, nation or place. It is through the collective identities formed at these various levels that belonging is most often articulated. What it means to belong, and the routes to finding belonging, vary between individuals and groups and are affected by numerous variables, including history, politics and economics. On an individual level, belonging is influenced by subject positions, such as gender, social class and ethnicity, as well as the individual qualities of personality, political beliefs and values. Miller’s (2003b: 415) casting of belonging as an ‘existential opportunity’ suggests individuals and communities have a certain amount of agency in determining the degree to which belonging is attained. Belonging can be envisaged on a spectrum ranging from weak ties to a deep sense of connectedness, and all grades in between. The most basic level of belonging is achieved for virtually all individuals simply through familiarity. That which is known is generally associated with the aspects of belonging encapsulated in notions of safety, ease and comfort. A higher level of belonging is characterised by membership, association, affiliation and acceptance, which coincide with the space for self-expression. Deeper levels of belonging still are attainable through the sense that

Introduction • 17

we are adding value and contributing to our worlds; that we are needed and, at the greatest depths, indispensable. Belonging at this level ‘chimes with commitment, loyalty and common purpose’ (Crowley 1999: 18). In relation to a region or nation, higher levels of belonging extend beyond formal membership to the personal and voluntary commitments characterised by positive sentiments of sharing and reciprocity (Crowley 1999: 18). In this vein, Yuval-Davis (2004: 216) suggests that ‘neither citizenship nor identity can encapsulate the notion of belonging. Belonging is where the sociology of emotions interfaces with the sociology of power, where identification and participation collude’. Consequently, research into belonging requires that both subjectivity and structure are taken into account.

Botswana Achievements and Ongoing Challenges In order to understand how political and experiential autochthony, emplacement and belonging operate for white Batswana in the Okavango, it is important to locate their particular circumstances within Botswana more broadly. Over the past several decades, Botswana has been widely acclaimed an ‘African success story’. A British protectorate from 1885 to 1966, economically it has risen from the second poorest country in the world at the time of Independence, to consistently maintaining one of the highest rates of growth in gross national product in the world (Edge 1998: 338). This has been fuelled by the discovery of high-grade gem-quality diamonds, in addition to the growth of the beef export and tourism industries. Botswana is unusual in southern Africa for its genuinely free-market economy, characterised by a strong private sector and lesser state intervention relative to the capitalist-statist models elsewhere (Leysons 2006: 38). Botswana also boasts a functional liberal democratic political system that scores highly in the Afrobarometer survey for civil and political liberties (Leysons 2006: 38). It has an effective and professional bureaucracy, some provision of social welfare services and has appeared in the top third of countries for lack of corruption in Transparency International’s reports since 1998 (Poteete 2003: 461). Recent highly controversial cases addressing the thorny issues of minority rights and freedom of the press have demonstrated the judiciary to be free and fair (see Botlhomilwe, Sebudubudu and Maripe 2011: 342 on the press; Nyati-Ramahobo 2002b and Good 2008 on minorities). State provision of free education saw school attendance reach 88 per cent by 2005; an impressive achievement

18  •  At Home in the Okavango

considering that the population was among the least formally educated in the world at the time of Independence (Good 2008: 91). Also commendable is the state’s facilitation of access to health care and water across the vast land area, which has been well serviced by transport infrastructure (I. Taylor 2003: 223). Prominent anthropologist and long-term observer of Botswana Richard Werbner (2004: 15) observes that ‘the public sphere is thriving … and it is energized by critical demands for more open democracy, good governance, and a responsible press’. Werbner (2004: 2–3) contends that: for citizens of Botswana themselves, the emerging postcolony is surprising, a new polity exceeding their past expectations and largely, if not wholly, desirable. The country’s postcolonial development is hopeful and, in being full of potential and capability, is welcomed by citizens; it is increasingly being realized through a relatively open society that sustains values of civic virtue and civility in the public sphere.

This buoyant view of Botswana characterises the medium through which my Australian colleagues and friends have familiarity with Botswana: the novels of Alexander McCall Smith. His charming characters in The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series paint a picture of an idyllic African nation, unperturbed by the poverty and warfare that plague neighbouring nations. I have been asked on numerous occasions if the sentiments of these novels resemble contemporary realities in Botswana. While McCall Smith’s (2005 [1998]) representation of Botswana is overwhelmingly positive, my answer is: yes, to an extent they do. Both the nation’s proud and patriotic citizens, and those familiar with Botswana, tend to believe that there is something special about the country. The absence of serious conflict, the slow pace of life, the extremity of the climate and landscape, and the cohesion these conditions seem to inspire, all contribute to the charm of the nation. In this vein, after decades of critical engagement, Solway (2003: 486) describes Botswana as the ‘Disneyland of Africa’. The kinds of idyllic representations of Botswana proffered by the state and many of the nation’s highly patriotic citizens are, however, only part of the story. Below the surface, this highly stratified society, characterised by extreme disparity in wealth distribution along with entrenched discrimination on the basis of ethnicity and social class, is riven with growing tensions. While it certainly fares well in relative terms, it is important to recognise that the comparisons are drawn against African nations suffering some of the most challenging social, political, economic and environmental conditions globally. Good (2008: 1) rightly points out that when ‘apartheid and one-party dictatorships characterised the region,

Introduction • 19

and ethnic conflict, military coups and collapse occurred elsewhere, the image [of Botswana as an African miracle] claimed some credibility’. Botswana’s many achievements are marred by profound inequities in the distribution of benefits from the mining, tourism and beef industries, and the gap between rich and poor continues to grow. A third of the population still live below the national poverty line, with unemployment at 26.2 per cent and particularly effecting youth (GoB and UN 2010: 20). The Gini coefficient is a statistical measure of the distribution of wealth across a nation’s populace, with zero denoting full equality and a score of 100 allocated to the most inequitable of societies. Botswana, with a 2013 figure of sixty-three, occupies the dubious position of the fourth least equitable nation in the world (CIA World Factbook 2013). Good (2008) attributes this disparity to the diamond industry, which has enabled great capital accumulation, but at the cost of economic diversification. The industry contributes little in terms of employment – a mere 3 per cent of formal sector jobs – as diamond production is capital rather than labour intensive (Manzungu, Mpho and Mpale-Mudanga 2009: 210). Good (2008) describes Botswana’s economy as one of the most mineral dependent in the world and warns that the finite nature of the resource, along with the complacency it has encouraged in the development of alternative industries, lends to a bleak economic and social outlook in the longer term. While the government recognises this issue and has placed economic diversification at the centre of its policy concerns (GoB 2013), mineral dependency is deeply entrenched. A corollary of the lack of investment into other areas is that the nation is unable to meet many of its basic needs, such as food and electricity provision. Botswana retains a huge reliance for such goods and services on South Africa, importing some seventeen billion rand’s worth in 2004 (Good 2008: 17). Gulbrandsen (2012: 116) similarly describes diamond wealth as augmenting inequalities in Botswana. The state has implemented numerous policies with diamond revenues that at first glance appear to facilitate extraordinary opportunities for all citizens. Yet, on closer inspection, many such policies have further enriched the elite, while bypassing the poor or locking them into welfare dependency. Prior to the discovery of diamonds, pastoralism formed the backbone of the economy, and cattle continue to hold profound economic and symbolic importance for much of the population. Consequently, since Independence the state has channelled vast diamond revenues into developing the industry. Despite its mantra of ‘diamonds for development’, many government initiatives, and particularly the Tribal Grazing Land Policy (TGLP), have, in fact, compounded inequalities. The TGLP has encouraged the commercialisation of the cattle industry and fenced farming in lieu of the traditional

20  •  At Home in the Okavango

communal lands model. This has resulted in the cattle ranching elite benefiting from ‘dual grazing’: that is, utilising both the commons and their own exclusive-use land to ensure the best pasture and rested fields for their herds (Manzungu, Mpho, Mpale-Mudanga 2009: 215). Furthermore, the communal land remaining is monopolised by wealthy cattle owners through the drilling of private boreholes, resulting in exclusive-use rights. Gulbrandsen (2012: 13) describes huge ramifications for rural communities in terms of loss of cattle facilitated by ‘this translation of common property into individual wealth’. While only 10 per cent of households were estimated to be bereft of cattle in the 1940s, a staggering 74 per cent of rural families were without cattle in 1991, despite the ongoing significance of cattle to local economies (Good 1993: 224). A large body of evidence summarised by Magole (2009b: 619) concludes that the TGLP has failed in its stated aims of increasing productivity, preventing overgrazing and increasing equality in rural regions, and has in fact exacerbated these latter problems. Despite the considerable evidence of the policy’s failure, the government continues to support it, which Magole (2009b: 624) attributes to the ‘land-grabbing opportunity it offers the rich and powerful’. Alienation from the commons resulting from the TGLP, in addition to land lost to conservation and tourism and limited formal employment opportunities, has led to 19 per cent of the population being dependent on government welfare (GoB and UN 2010: 20). This has been particularly detrimental in the case of remote area dwellers – particularly the Bushmen, who have been removed from their traditional lands to settlements where hunting and gathering is not permitted, and where the social malaise and indignity of welfare dependency have resulted in growing social issues, such as alcoholism (I. Taylor 2003: 225). The destitute allowance of around P210 per month is intentionally below the national poverty line in order that it not discourage the seeking of employment, yet the job market simply cannot provide work for the vast numbers of unemployed (Good 2008: 84–85). The state recognises the issue and has numerous policies aiming to eradicate abject poverty; however, their goals are far from being reached (GoB 2013). Severe poverty and inequities of wealth are certainly evident in the Okavango. ‘According to the 1996 United Nations (UN) human poverty index, close to half (40.6 per cent) of the inhabitants of the Okavango region live in “human poverty” (a composite measure of long and healthy life, knowledge, economic provisioning and social inclusion) (UNDP 2005, 2000)’ (Mbaiwa, Ngwenya and Kgathi 2008: 160). Welfare dependency is high and has surpassed arable agriculture and livestock keeping as livelihood sources in some parts of this largely rural district. Ongoing rural

Introduction • 21

poverty is attributable to a number of factors, including a lack of employment opportunities, the community’s vulnerability to disease, limited access to educational facilities and poor soil quality, and the high prevalence of wildlife, posing challenges to agricultural activities (Mbaiwa 2005a: 166). The epidemic of Contagious Bovine Pleuro Pneumonia (CBPP) in the mid 1990s led to the government destroying all cattle in the region, the devastating impact of which continues to be felt. Moreover, self-sufficiency is often not possible within the predominant practice of dry farming in Ngamiland, where crop yields are low, necessitating the undertaking of mixed livelihood strategies (Bock 1998: 30). The dynamic nature of the Okavango floods further contributes to poverty, as channels dry up sporadically, leaving previously irrigated regions dry, while other areas are flooded. The precarious conditions endured by the rural poor exist in stark contrast with the vast wealth accumulated by those involved in the region’s lucrative tourism industry. Such inequities have serious social ramifications, and Good (2008: 90) argues that the ‘stress of living at the bottom of the social hierarchy, the stress of disrespect and the lack of personal esteem, produces sickness and death’. Sickness and death have been all too pervasive in Botswana in recent years owing to the HIV/AIDS epidemic; infection rates of which have been among the highest in the world. In southern Ngamiland 16 per cent of the total population is HIV positive, with 13 per cent of the community infected in the north (Kgathi et al. 2006: 12). The disease has ‘eroded gains made in reducing morbidity and mortality, and reduced life expectancy by more than 10 years’ (GoB and UN 2010: 20). The magnitude of the impact of HIV/AIDS on households results from its affecting primarily the ‘most productive cohorts’ over the long term (Kgathi, Ngwenya and Wilk 2007: 300). This has meant the loss of labour and employment, which has greatly exacerbated poverty, while leaving high numbers of female-headed households, displaced children and orphans. The pandemic has placed particularly high burdens on women in caring for the ill (Klaits 2009: 6). Yet, the government response to HIV/AIDS has been swift and extensive, with vast resources devoted to education campaigns and the provision of free antiretrovirals to all of those infected – an accomplishment that has impacted morbidity rates significantly. For further discussions of the HIV/AIDS crises and its implications in the Okavango see Kgathi et al. (2007, 2006, 2004) and Mbaiwa (2005b). In addition to poverty, inequality and the AIDS crisis, Botswana has challenges in relation to its political system, which is said to be impeded by ‘an authoritarian culture, [an excessively] powerful state structure, an absence of organized and politically oriented groups, paternalistic representation, a submissive mass media, and elitist party structures’ (Molutsi

22  •  At Home in the Okavango

and Holm 1990: 339). Many of these characteristics have developed on account of the fact that despite free and fair elections, the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) has governed since Independence. On the lack of viable alternatives, Ian Taylor (2003: 216) blames, ‘interminable intraparty faction-fighting, internal splits, an unfavourable electoral system (i.e., ‘first past the post’), feeble organisational structures, and poor capacity to promote alternative policies’. In addition, opposition parties struggle to attract funds for their campaigns owing to the unlikelihood of winning elections (I. Taylor 2003: 218). The vast diamond wealth of the state has, by contrast, been central to the BDP’s electoral success, where it has co-opted elite support with policies such as the TGLP, while securing the support of the poor through welfare programmes. Since the inauguration in 2008 of President Ian Khama, a former Commander of the Botswana Defence Force, the BDP have increasingly been accused of autocratic rule and a lack of accountability. Commentators are particularly perturbed by the government’s seeming intolerance of dissenting views (Botlhomilwe, Sebudubudu and Maripe 2011: 336; I. Taylor 2003: 220). This has been evident in a clamping down on the press, manifest in the government’s proposal for a new Media Practitioners Act described as ‘draconian both in intent and content’ (Botlhomilwe et al. 2011: 340). In a recent controversial incident, the government expressed its contempt for media scrutiny through its withholding of advertising from certain newspapers critical of its actions (Botlhomilwe et al. 2011: 342). While the courts ordered the government’s withdrawal of contracts unlawful, such actions have led to scholars suggesting that ‘what has long been described as an “African Miracle” is quickly degenerating into an autocracy manifesting itself in the form of personalised rule, abuse and/ or misuse of power and intolerance of divergent views, which has implications for the democratic principle of freedom of press and expression’ (Botlhomilwe et al. 2011: 346). Disillusionment with such an emerging paradigm has, however, led to a number of powerful MPs breaking with history in developing the first faction to leave the BDP, forming the Botswana Movement for Democracy (BMD), who have joined the Botswana National Front (BNF) and Botswana People’s Party (BPP) in founding the Umbrella for Democratic Change. The BDP majority has been diminishing over the years at each election, and many believe the possibility of a genuine challenge to the BDP’s dominance, or at least to its complacency, is finally emerging. Compounding the lack of political opposition is the weakness of civil society organisations, which has resulted in limited effective opposition to the government’s agenda. According to Ian Taylor (2003: 221), factors contributing to the lethargy of civil society are the absence of an

Introduction • 23

Independence struggle, the economic and political stability of the nation since that time, and the hierarchical nature of Tswana culture whereby people customarily defer to rulers. Additionally, many of the nation’s elite, who would ideally pose challenges to government through civil society organisations, are employed within the civil service or parastatals – with the former explicitly denied the right to engage in partisan political activities (Molutsi and Holm 1990: 328). Those civil society organisations that are in operation are readily co-opted by the state, particularly through state provision of financial grants. A prime example of this lies in state sponsorship of minority cultural groups, where funding is provided for dance, song and other tokenistic performances of alterity that not only control such groups through financial co-option, but also endow the state with a facade of multiculturalism in lieu of the provision of more meaningful rights and recognition (Solway 2011). On a social level, while Botswana has remained free of interethnic violence, identity politics have burgeoned in recent years. With its strong economy and stable government, Botswana is an ‘island of prosperity in an ocean of downturns and uncertainties’ and, consequently, attracts many illegal immigrants, particularly from Zimbabwe (Nyamnjoh 2006: 18). Many Batswana resent the increasing numbers of immigrants, and xenophobic sentiments are on the rise. In the Okavango, xenophobic attitudes are directed not only to those migrants at the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder, but also towards expatriates, who have long dominated the upper echelons of the tourism industry. The mostly white expatriates are resented as they are seen as monopolising the industry, exporting profits and importing racist attitudes – a situation on which I elaborate in Chapter Two. In addition to tension between Batswana and other nationals, contestation between the politically dominant Tswana and ethnic minority groups – by whom I mean all those of non-Tswana ethnicities – have come to the fore in recent decades. Historically, the Tswana incorporated minority groups into their merafe (nations – sing. morafe) as lower status subjects, from whom they extracted tribute and labour. These existing hierarchies were considerably strengthened by the British administration’s empowering of the eight Tswana merafe in the protectorate years through the Chieftainship Act, which rendered all non-Tswana groups subordinate to regional Tswana chiefs. The inequities were institutionalised further at Independence, when it was decreed that the only languages to be taught in schools were Setswana and English. That the Bechuanaland protectorate was at this time named Botswana, meaning place of the Tswana, is telling, as despite Botswana’s claims of distancing itself from ethnic citizenship, it is one of only four out of fifty-three

24  •  At Home in the Okavango

African states to name the nation after the dominant ethnic group (Young 2007: 249). Nonetheless, the state prides itself as a liberal democracy committed to civic citizenship through providing equal rights to all on an individual rather than collective basis. Indeed, at Independence, ‘the Tswana-dominated ruling group managed to win hegemony by capturing the population – with no significant coercion – into a nation building discourse of universal progress’ (Gulbrandsen 2012: 191). Central to this was the ‘moral and political leadership of a nation-state that was overwhelmingly oriented towards Western modernity, national unity and antitribalism’ (Gulbrandsen 2012: 192). Below the surface of state rhetoric, however, lies the continuation of historically entrenched structural inequalities, with considerable discord evident between the state’s claims to civic citizenship and the constitutional privileging of the eight dominant Tswana merafe. The constitution ensures ex officio membership in the House of Chiefs for the eight Tswana paramount chiefs alone, while national structures are steeped in Tswana culture, from the institutions of governance, to legislation pertaining to land use and distribution, to the use of Setswana as the national language. A number of minority groups feel that their unique cultural ways are under threat by the dominance of Tswana culture and their incorporation into Tswana merafe. Minority grievances range from the material through to the symbolic, with entrenched discrimination and marginalisation evident in the inequitable access to land and political representation for minorities, which is illuminated glaringly through the fact that the highest levels of poverty plague those districts dominated by minority populations (Solway 2011: 215). Collective rights and recognition tend to be the sole purview of the Tswana, while minority group languages and cultural values and practices are relegated to the private sphere. As a consequence, Chebanne (2002: 50) suggests that Botswana has witnessed the greatest loss of culture and language among minorities relative to any other African country. The greatest blight on the Botswana state’s reputation and human rights record has been its treatment of the Bushmen. They continue to be the most impoverished minority in the nation and are given little recognition for their unique history and contemporary circumstances. Particularly controversial has been the government’s forced removal of the Bushmen from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR). The CKGR was established by the protectorate government in 1961 with the goal of environmental conservation, but also with provision for Bushmen communities, predominantly the Gana and Gwi, to continue their traditional way of life. Over time the population grew and the government provided Bushmen with basic services, such as water, through drilling

Introduction • 25

boreholes. The Bushmen practiced varied livelihood strategies, hunting and gathering, along with keeping small livestock, farming and receiving government rations. ‘The residents’ mixed subsistence practices were seen as increasingly incompatible with wildlife conservation’, describes Solway (2009: 327). ‘Theoretically, relocation of the Bushmen would enable better wildlife management in the CKGR, enhance its tourist potential, and also enable the government to provide services more effectively and economically to the residents, who would be in more concentrated settlements’ (Solway 2009: 327). Consequently, the government began encouraging resettlement in villages built outside the reserve. The communities resisted, but most eventually reluctantly moved, with the exception of roughly four hundred people. In 2002, the government ceased all service provision, discontinued negotiations and commenced strong coercive measures; dismantling people’s homes, loading their belongings in vehicles and removing them from the reserve. By this time the London-based Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Survival International, had entrenched itself as the Bushmen’s defender and was in the throes of a virulent shaming campaign, going so far as accusing the government of genocide and the pursuit of blood diamonds; neither claim of which was defensible (see Solway 2011). Together the Bushmen and their supporters challenged the government through the high court, demanding their right of return to live in the CKGR. In December 2006, after a lengthy battle, the court ruled largely in favour of the applicants. This was a somewhat hollow victory, however, as the state complied with the judgement in the most minimal terms, allowing only the named applicants to return, in many cases dividing families. The state provided no services, not even water, and forbade the Bushmen both the use of existing government boreholes and the drilling of new ones. Until the 2014 hunting ban was instituted, hunting permits were available by application, but only the narrowly defined ‘traditional methods’ could be used (Solway 2009: 322). Solway (2011: 230) contends that Survival International’s portrayal of the Bushmen as self-sufficient hunter-gatherers prompted the government, who had been so internationally shamed by the NGO, to comply so literally and harshly with the claim for rights to hunt and gather in the reserve. The fraught ongoing battle between Botswana’s first people and the state continues and demonstrates the contentious nature of minority relations in Botswana in the current period. While many of the nation’s minorities feel politically disempowered by the Tswana-centric governance, the way in which these battles are fought warrants mention. The Okavango’s largest ethnic group, the Wayeyi, have been working for decades towards securing rights and recognition for

26  •  At Home in the Okavango

their community, as I discuss in detail in Chapter Four. Of the Wayeyi’s campaign, one of their leading activists, the current Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University of Botswana, Lydia Nyati Ramahobo (now Saleshando) (2002b: 706) writes that the group’s persistence is attributable ‘to patience, to a democratic attitude and to a peaceful determination on the part of the disadvantaged peoples of Botswana’. Significant here is the notion of ‘peaceful’ action, which conforms to the societal idyll of kagisano. Legal redress and negotiation are the tools utilised in lieu of the violence seen in so many other parts of Africa (Werbner 2002: 118). Solway (2002: 713) suggests that ‘it is precisely because of the liberal state’s effectiveness, not its failure, that formerly subordinated groups have self-identified and pursued the challenge to rewrite the basis of their inclusion in the nation state’. Thus while minority grievances are ongoing, disputes are for the most played out peaceably and are being taken seriously by the government, which is a significant point of difference to parallel issues in some other parts of Africa.

Ngamiland’s Ethnic Constitution Botswana is comprised of great ethnic diversity, being home to at least twenty-three ethnolinguistic groups (Chebanne 2002: 47). The unequivocal dominance of the Tswana in the public sphere masks the fact that minorities together constitute similar if not greater numbers than those identifying as Tswana (Gulbrandsen 2012: 210). While I briefly describe each of these groups, it is important to bear in mind that as ethnicity is socially produced, group borders are porous and continually subject to change. Many of Botswana’s groups have historically been closely integrated, with high levels of cultural exchange and intermarriage. Nomenclature of the various ethnic groups is not a straightforward matter either, with many different spellings and pronunciations in circulation, along with contestation surrounding instances where self-identifications are incommensurate with the names attributed by other groups. The San/Basarwa/Bushman is a case in point. Until recently, in self-reference they have used the particular ethnolinguistic and clan names in lieu of any collective term. The state, however, refers to the group as Basarwa; an amended version of the previous century’s widely used appellation Masarwa, which is seen as pejorative on account of the prefix (Ma-) that is normatively applied to ‘things’ rather than people in Setswana (Barnard 1992: 8). (Significantly, this prefix continues to be used in the Setswana moniker for white people, Makgoa, as I discuss in Chapter Five.) Bushmen and San are the other commonly used terms for the collectivity,

Introduction • 27

and despite having been externally imposed and perceived historically as derogatory, growing numbers of those designated as such are advocating for their utility and reimagining in a positive light (Solway 2011: 217; Hitchcock and Biesele n.d.). Throughout the book, I use the more specific group names where possible, and Bushmen in reference to the collective, as it is both the term most commonly used in the Okavango (I seldom heard the term San) and appears to be increasingly favoured by scholars working closely with these communities (e.g., Solway 2011, 2009; Bolaane 2004: 400; Barnard 1992: 8). The Bushmen are the Okavango region’s first inhabitants. In his comparative ethnography of the Khoisan of southern Africa, Barnard (1992: 121) notes that at least thirty groups are reported among the eastern and northern Bushmen (with the high number reflecting at least some discrepancies in nomenclature). Among the larger groups are: the Bugakhwe, many of whom today live in Gudikwa and Khwai villages, and who have traditionally hunted, fished and gathered in the riverine, forest and sandveld environments; the Xanekwe, who are often referred to as BaNoka or River Bushmen and are riverine people, who have traditionally lived around the panhandle and along the Boro and Boteti rivers; the Ts’exa, a sandveld-oriented community residing mainly in Mababe, Sankuyo and Phuduhudu villages; along with the Ju/hoansi of the XaiXai area, and small numbers of representatives of other groups (Bock 1998; Tlou 1985). Archaeological evidence suggests that Bushmen communities have lived in the delta region for 10,000 years or more (Tlou 1985: 8). Ngamiland is also home to numerous Bantu-language groups. The BaKgalagadi are traditionally closely associated with the Bushmen and share similar mixed livelihood strategies, including hunting and gathering, small-scale livestock keeping and agriculture. The largest and longest established Bantu-language group in the region are the Wayeyi, who constitute approximately 40 per cent of the region’s population (NyatiRamahobo 2002b: 686). With a cultural capital in Gumare, the Wayeyi live predominantly in and around the townships of Maun, Tsau and Nokaneng, as well as Sankuyo in the delta, and the panhandle villages of Sepopa and Seronga. The Wayeyi, like the HaMbukushu, Subiyu and Dxeriku of the region, are riverine people, who have traditionally engaged in a mixed economy of agriculture, fishing, hunting, collecting veld products and, to a limited extent, pastoralism (Bock 1998: 28; Tlou 1985: 16). The HaMbukushu live predominantly in the panhandle region and have traditionally been lauded as powerful rainmakers. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, approximately 4,000 HaMbukushu moved to the Etsha region in the western panhandle fleeing war in Angola. Small numbers of Otjiherero-speaking Ovambanderu and OvaHerero pastoralists also

28  •  At Home in the Okavango

settled in Ngamiland as refugees, although they arrived around the turn of the previous century, and were fleeing subjugation under authoritarian chiefs and German colonists in Namibia. All of these various groups have historically been integrated into the Tawana morafe. The BaTawana are a subgroup of the Tswana people, who are constituted by eight dominant merafe: BaNgwato, BaTawana, BaKgatla, BaKwena, BaNgwaketse, BaMalete, BaRolong and BaTlokwa. The BaTawana established the first centralised state in Ngamiland when Prince Tawana split from the BaNgwato and moved to the area with his followers subsequent to civil war at the end of the eighteenth century (Tlou 1985: 33). The term BaTawana is confusingly similar to Batswana, the plural term for all citizens of Botswana. In order to minimise confusion, I capitalise the first initial of the ethnic group’s name (i.e., BaTawana), while leaving it lowercase when using the terms for all the nation’s citizens (i.e., Motswana, Batswana). The BaTawana continue to politically dominate the region and are a patrilineal community of pastoralists, whose royal centre is the town of Maun. Within Tawana sociopolitical organisation, households together form a kgotla (pl. dikgotla) or ward that has at its head the kgosana (hereditary headman). Together the various dikgotla form the Tawana morafe, headed by the Kgosi (king). The Tawana morafe incorporates all citizens, regardless of their ethnic background, into its sociopolitical structures. The kgotla is the central institution in Tswana political life. It refers to the political unit of the tribal council and court, as well as to the physical meeting area of the council. The kgotla is a forum where all manner of grievances are aired, political issues debated, ceremonial activities conducted, laws promulgated and judgements brought down by the Chief and tribal council (see Gulbrandsen 2012; Peters 1994; Schapera 1938). It is, in theory, a democratic forum where along with the Chief exercising his authority, villagers are provided the opportunity to directly express their concerns. Yet, women, minorities and youth have not traditionally held speaking rights, and some scholars suggest it is more often than not ‘a vehicle to mobilize political support for decisions already made by the community’s political elite’ (Molutsi and Holm 1990: 326). Along with the Bushmen and Bantu-language groups, Ngamiland is home to an expatriate population from numerous nations across the globe, although predominately from South Africa. When I commenced this research, I intended to include expatriates in my focus in order to address the position of the white community as a whole. White Batswana and long-term expatriates – particularly those from neighbouring southern African nations – are, at first glance, in many respects indistinguishable. They share many cultural values and practices, live the same lifestyle

Introduction • 29

and are socially integrated and commonly marry. It soon became clear, however, that there were some fundamental differences dividing the two groups. I first realised the inappropriateness of discursively treating them as a single collectivity when I attempted to write about experiences of crime. While white citizens consistently downplay the issue, white expatriates tend to express great anxiety. This indicates a certain level of ontological precariousness among expatriates, which is also expressed in terms of perennial stress surrounding residency and work permits. The increasingly stringent criteria for obtaining and renewing such permits result, understandably, in considerable concern for those expatriates who have made their lives in Botswana. Along with being free of such anxieties, white Batswana enjoy a host of rights and resources as citizens and constantly articulate strongly nationalistic sentiments, demonstrating the centrality of their citizenship to their identities. While these factors have resulted in my focus on white citizens, the strong integration of expatriates in white Batswana lifeworlds means that I discuss their position and experiences on numerous occasions. Finally, in terms of ethnic constitution, Ngamiland is also home to citizens whose ancestors derive from India, China, Europe and elsewhere. The white citizens around whom this study is focused constitute a very small minority. In accordance with the emphasis on civic rather than ethnic citizenship, the Botswana census does not include ethnic data. While exact figures are consequently unavailable, it is estimated by community members that there are a maximum of 5,000 white residents living in the greater Okavango region, which is home to roughly 130,000 citizens in total. The vast majority of whites – most believe around 90 per cent – are expatriates who have come to the Okavango to work in the tourism industry. By these estimates, the Okavango is home to no more than 500 white citizens. This small group derives predominantly from English and Afrikaner ancestry. These communities remain discrete in terms of identity, and yet the divisions in the Okavango are somewhat less pronounced than in other parts of southern Africa. There are many individuals from Afrikaans-speaking backgrounds who are strongly integrated into the English community. While I interviewed and worked with a number of Afrikaans-speaking people, the bulk of my interlocutors spoke English as their first language and identified with cultural ways derived from an English-African background. (I use ‘English-African’ here, as the majority of my interlocutors’ trace their ancestry back several generations in other parts of Africa, particularly eastern and southern Africa, rather than directly to Europe). The dominant culture that prevails among the white community in the public sphere is English-derived. Thus when I write of white citizens, unless otherwise stated, I refer particularly to the English-oriented community.

30  •  At Home in the Okavango

The Okavango Delta The key natural feature around which the majority of white Batswana make their living is the Okavango Delta. Covering an area between 6,000 and 13,000 square kilometres, depending upon flood and precipitation levels, the Okavango is one of the world’s largest inland deltas (Gieske 1997: 215). The waters commence their journey in the highlands of Angola and are carried down the Cubango and Cuito rivers into Nambia’s Caprivi Strip, before entering Botswana at Mohembo. River waters flow through the panhandle’s large winding main channel before opening out into the idiosyncratic alluvial fan, which is constituted by countless channels, floodplains and islands, the largest of which is Chief’s Island. From the main Nqoga channel, waters divide into several tributaries feeding the Maunachira and Khwai rivers, as well as the Santantadibe and the Boro, the latter of which flows first into the Thamalakane River – around which Maun is situated – and then onto the Boteti (Wolski and Murray-Hudson 2005: 1869). It is via the Boteti River that waters peter out into the lowest point of the Kalahari Basin in the Makgadikgadi pans. On account of the low gradient and vast floodplains, the floodwaters move very gradually and peak at Mohembo around April each year, while only reaching their highest levels in Maun some five months later (Gieske 1997: 217). The system is dynamic and considerable changes occur to the flood’s movements year to year, as sedimentation and variable rainfall lead to channel blockages, while new channels are formed by these redirected waters, along with hippo and elephant movements. Further facilitating the system’s dynamism is the permeability of the papyrus reeds and sedges that form the channel banks (Wolski and Murray-Hudson 2005: 1869). The Okavango is surrounded by the Kalahari Desert and incorporates a variety of habitats from floodplains, sandveld and grass plains, to acacia and mopane forests. These support great biodiversity, including at least 150 species of mammals, 500 bird and 90 fish species, along with countless reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates and plants. The region’s arid nature and high average temperatures lead to an extraordinary evapotranspiration rate of close to 98 per cent (Gieske 1997: 217). Floodwaters recede quickly in such conditions and the verdant floodplains are quickly replaced by dry grass veld. The flood’s movements have historically profoundly affected patterns of human settlement, resulting in ways of life very different to those of much of the rest of Botswana (Tlou 1985: 2–3). The three nations in which the system lies have been working together to manage the Okavango basin since the end of the civil war in Angola. In addition to these states, there are numerous organisations

Introduction • 31

locally, nationally and internationally that exert influence over the delta’s management. In 1994, the Permanent Okavango River Basin Water Commission (OKACOM) was established, followed soon after by Botswana signing the Southern African Development Community (SADC) water protocol, which provides the underlying management principles for all southern African waterways. Considering 58 per cent of the Okavango River Basin’s population resides in Angola, 27 per cent in the Kavango in Namibia, and a mere 15 per cent in Ngamiland, international cooperation is of central concern (Kgathi et al. 2006:10). The Okavango has been subject to serious threats over the past few decades, on account of the aridity of the region and the highly sought after nature of water; particularly in light of the critical development needs and pervasive poverty affecting populations living in and around the system. International conservation bodies, most particularly the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), have been heavily involved in advocating for the system’s protection, and in 1997 the Okavango Delta was listed as a Ramsar site; Ramsar being an intergovernmental, international convention that aims to ensure wise use and conservation of wetlands globally. In June 2014, the Okavango Delta’s application for recognition as a World Heritage Site was accepted, ensuring ongoing international protection. Consequently, the Okavango is a site of alternating contestation and collaboration among its many local and international stakeholders.

Maun Maun is the Okavango region’s capital and largest human settlement. The majority of white citizens have a home base in Maun, while their work for the most part takes place in the surrounding wildlife areas. Maun is many different things to the highly divergent groups living or visiting therein. For the BaTawana, Maun is their royal town, the centre of the Tawana morafe and the home of their central kgotla. Geographically, the town is formed around the Thamalakane River and is divided into numerous dikgotla (wards). White Batswana are not co-localised; their homes are spread throughout these wards, with many demonstrating a preference for living close to the river. Maun is also the regional administrative capital, servicing the greater Ngamiland district, with its estimated population of 130,000. While still officially zoned as a village, Maun is a sprawling town of some 44,000 inhabitants, having experienced rapid growth in the past two decades on account of government development programmes and the growth of the tourism industry.

32  •  At Home in the Okavango

For many of the tourists passing through, Maun is perceived as a remote frontier outpost. Nine hundred kilometres from the nation’s capital, Gaborone, and five hundred kilometres from the nearest regional centre, Francistown, Maun is far from the hub of Botswana’s political and commercial centres in the south-east, where the bulk of the nation’s two million people reside. Bordered to the north-west by the Okavango system with the Moremi Game Reserve at its heart, to the east and north-east by the extensive salt pans of the Nxai and Makgadikgadi Pans National Parks, and to the south by the vast Central Kalahari Game Reserve, Maun lies in the heart of a vast wilderness zone. For most of the year, Maun is hot, dry and dusty. Goats, donkeys and cattle roam freely, often obstructing the traffic, and safari Land Cruisers share the roads with local taxis and donkey carts. In Maun, the traditional and modern, the local and global, merge in an organic juxtaposition of mud-brick and thatch huts, alongside new government buildings, tourist offices and Internet cafes. Maun’s economy is equally diverse, with traditional African subsistence lifestyles coexisting alongside the high-end Okavango tourism that attracts some of the richest and most famous international celebrities. Until recently, Maun was technologically ill-equipped, and isolated as a consequence. It was only in the 1990s that it acquired an automatic telephone exchange and television transmitter, and was linked to the rest of Botswana with a tarred road. At the time of my longest stint of fieldwork from 2006 to 2007, there were still poor medical facilities – although a new hospital was under construction – along with unreliable power and water, erratic telecommunications and limited access to consumer items. Houses did not have addresses and only the main streets had names. On the one hundred-year anniversary of Maun’s establishment as the regional capital, the expatriate editor of the local newspaper, the Ngami Times (2005), described Maun as a frontier town: ‘a town worldrenowned for many things – from big game hunting, wildlife, bush and desert safaris, heavy drinking, bachelors, and parties to being the gateway to the wonderful Okavango delta’. For white Batswana, Maun is constructed from both an insider and outsider perspective. Working so closely with tourists, they are well-versed in its apprehension as a frontier outpost, yet they also understand its significance within the Tawana morafe and as a regional centre. When I asked about perceptions of Maun, my white Batswana interlocutors most frequently described it simply as ‘home’. The body of concepts and beliefs that constitute ‘home’ exist not only as spatial and temporal, but also on a social and political level. The ideology of home encompasses value systems derived from the perceived functions of home, including security, stability and nurture (George 1999: 8). Integral to notions of home are

Introduction • 33

also familiarity, comfort and autonomy, yet also the obverse, as homes at times become sites of internal conflict and places of anxiety and stress (Sibley 1995: 93). On a sociopolitical level, home connotes belonging in terms of the discourse of nationalism and, conversely, the possibility of insecurity and alienation (Said 1990: 359). For many migrants, ‘home is a problematic site, since the reality of home as well as its imaginative projection are vulnerably linked to an entire network of personal, national, social, and cultural identifications’ (Roy 1995: 104). Consequently, for white Batswana being ‘at home in the Okavango’ encompasses a complex ontological positioning; a dialectical vacillation between belonging and insecurity.

Narrating the Okavango In order to analytically come to terms with experiential and political autochthony for white Batswana, I rely on the notion of narrative. The relationships of individuals or groups with the local community, the state, the local environment and to history are the stuff of autochthony. My primary means of representing such relationships is through the stories and general discourse of white Batswana, and through my own ethnographic narrative. White Batswana are expert raconteurs and spend much of their social life engaged in the exchange of stories. I include these throughout the book, not only to shed light on their thoughts, feelings, perceptions and understanding of their relationships to the local environment, but also as an exemplification of their own strategies and means of developing a sense of belonging through the discursive construction of their identities as Batswana. In addition, my own narrative is included in the form of ethnographic data and its analysis, through which I explore white Batswana political and experiential autochthony. The nature of anthropological research is such that the type of study undertaken, the questions asked, the information received and subsequently represented, is highly contingent not only on serendipity within a particular historical time and space, but also on the individual researcher’s age, gender, personal proclivities, experiences, orientations and so forth. As a seventh-generation settler-descended Australian, for example, an exploration of belonging is of particular interest to me. I recognise the opportunities and privileges I am afforded as a white Australian, relative to the disadvantage faced by many Indigenous Australians. This awareness sits uneasily alongside a sense of connection to the place in which I was born, raised and have lived much of my life. My interest in processes of emplacement and belonging of the

34  •  At Home in the Okavango

white minority in the Okavango is influenced by this subject position. Consequently, ethnography should always be read, to an extent, as an individual researcher’s narrative. The ethnographic fieldwork from which this narrative has grown was conducted for one year commencing in August 2006, with additional follow-up visits for a month each in January 2008 and November 2012. With a home base in Maun, I spent the fourteen months participating in numerous mobile safaris, sitting around campfires and listening to stories and visiting the delta’s elite lodges, all the while observing the dynamics between citizens of various ethnic backgrounds, expatriates and tourists. Community members leave Maun and head to the bush whenever they can, and I spent many weekends camping in the delta, the salt pans of the Makgadikgadi and in the Kalahari. I participated in several fishing trips to the panhandle, and I was fortunate to be invited on a twelve-day trans-Okavango trip, traversing the length of the delta by boat. My investigation of the tourism industry included attending the largest southern African tourism convention, Indaba, in Durban, South Africa in May 2007 with a number of Botswana delegates. In among the many safaris and time spent with community members in town and in the bush, I conducted over a hundred semi-structured recorded interviews. Interlocutors were drawn from a broad cross-section of the Okavango community, including white Batswana, along with citizens of BaTawana, BaNgwaketse, BaKwena, Wayeyi and Bugakhwe backgrounds. I spoke with a great number of expatriates from southern Africa and many other parts of the world, in addition to numerous international tourists. Botswana-based interlocutors were men and women of diverse age groups and included people working in all aspects of the safari industry: from managing directors to tent cleaners, photographic guides to professional hunters, as well as missionaries, mechanics, health professionals and unskilled labourers. The pre-existing connections I had from three years of previous travel and work in various parts of southern Africa, in conjunction with the small, closely knit nature of the community, made it remarkably easy to meet people, build friendships and recruit participants. As is often the case with ethnographic research, I became strongly integrated into the community, forming very close friendships and engaging as much, if not more, on a personal as a professional level in many of my interactions. These personal relationships have both facilitated and made difficult the writing of this book. As anthropologists have long recognised, the close relationships that frequently result from long-term fieldwork can make an impartial representation of a community difficult, if not impossible. This challenge is compounded by the complex political position of

Introduction • 35

the subjects of this study. In writing about white Zimbabweans, Pilossof (2012: 187) points out the careful treatment required to present neither ‘an apologist account of white farmers’ nor ‘a tirade against an unchanged group of racist neo-colonialists’. While some scholars may feel I have only achieved something of the former, and my white Batswana interlocutors something of the latter, my hope is that the inclusion of voices from across the broader Okavango community has allowed for an accurate portrayal of the lives of the region’s white Batswana, which takes into account not only the community’s self-perceptions, but how they are viewed by other Batswana, along with an analysis that speaks to wider anthropological understandings of the intersections of race, ethnicity, class and power. While I acquired information through participant observation among hundreds of community members, in this book I discursively focus on a handful of key interlocutors, for whom I use pseudonyms. Brothers Richard and Tony in their mid thirties generously provided me with broad access to their lives, ranging from their thoughts, feelings and beliefs in ongoing discussions about all aspects of Okavango living, to direct engagement with their professional lives. Tony invited me on a twelve-day hunting safari, while Richard arranged for me to participate in a week-long photographic safari he guided with his uncle. Similarly, Luke and Mark, in their forties and fifties respectively, invited me on a number of bush trips where they were guiding paying clients, including the trans-Okavango boating adventure. As a white Motswana woman living in Maun, but having grown up in Gaborone, Grace’s insights are grounded in an interesting insider/outsider perspective. Charlotte, by contrast, is a ‘born, bred and buttered’ white Motswana woman whose experiences have parallels with many of the women who have grown up in the Okavango. Cedric, a white Motswana in his fifties, tends to have rather cynical views that are often in opposition to those held by other white Batswana. His opinions are included throughout, precisely because they are so different to those of the majority of my interlocutors. Like Cedric, Deon’s views offer a counterpoint to the Okavango’s white Batswana, as he is of Afrikaner descent and spent his early years in the neighbouring Ghanzi district. In addition to these white Batswana, I include the perspectives of Ronny, a 24-yearold MoTawana man working as a barman in one of the tourist lodges in Maun predominantly frequented by white citizens and expatriates. He was one of many Batswana who were unfailingly generous in sharing their experiences of living and working alongside white Batswana. Finally, I include the perspectives of Tshepo, a MoNgwaketse woman originally from Gaborone, whose frankness, humour and perceptiveness illustrate her views as a Tswana woman who, like Ronny, has worked closely over many years with white Batswana and expatriates. In order not to inundate

36  •  At Home in the Okavango

the reader with a bewildering array of personalities, all other individuals described or quoted will not be named, but will be described using basic demographic descriptors.

Orienting White Batswana Experiential and Political Autochthony Experiential autochthony for white Batswana is inseparable from their relationship to the natural environment, which I describe in Chapter One. I suggest that their bush preoccupation must be read in light of the complexity of their position as European-descended citizens in postcolonial Africa, where the natural environment provides a less fraught means through which to develop local identifications than the social environment. White Batswana’s passion and expertise in relation to the bush is mobilised economically in the form of photographic and hunting tourism, which I explore respectively in Chapters Two and Three. Central to belonging is the sense that one is adding value and contributing to one’s community. Through their work in tourism, I describe the ways in which white citizen belonging is enhanced through sharing a vocation that is seen as contributing to the nation’s economic and social development and environmental conservation. Their role as hosts to international visitors enhances belonging further through the daily performance of their emplacement in contrast with the palpable foreignness of the tourist ‘other’. Conversely, I describe how alienation of the rural poor at the hands of conservation and tourism, disputes over land and resource use and the burgeoning of identity politics in the tourism industry pose considerable challenges to white Batswana’s position within the community. Miller (2003a: 218) suggests that belonging requires ‘standing in correct relation to one’s community, one’s history, and one’s locality’. In Chapter Four, I describe how white Batswana mobilise their nation’s history and the sociopolitical praxis of the majority Tswana to validate their claims to belonging. On the one hand, white Batswana’s frequently articulated love of, and patriotism to, Botswana signals the centrality of national citizenship to their identities, while, on the other, the emphatic nature of this discourse points to an inherent sense of insecurity. I explore the role of the Botswana state in determining identity politics and the ability, or otherwise, for minority groups to achieve equal rights and recognition. While Tswana-centric structures favour ethnically Tswana citizens, I suggest that in stark contrast to many other minorities, the nation’s political culture has in many instances directly served to enable white Batswana belonging.

Introduction • 37

Acceptance in the formal sense of citizenship allows only a limited measure of belonging, however. Higher levels of belonging require connections within the community beyond the rhetoric of the state. In his seminal work on the construction of ethnicity, Barth (1969: 14) points out that the ever-dynamic nature of cultural values and practices renders it necessary to look not solely at ‘the cultural stuff’ in order to understand a group, but at the boundaries they construct between themselves and others. In Chapter Five, I explore the operation of racial identities in the Okavango and the ways in which they are at times conflated with, and at times overridden by, the more specific identity markers of ethnicity, class and citizenship. White Batswana have maintained a discrete community over time through perceived difference from other Batswana, and I describe the dominant paradigm of limited social integration – most evident in the rarity of interracial marriage, and even close friendships across races – which indicates the persistence of racialised identities and segregation. Yet, white Batswana adamantly claim that relationships with the broader community are predominantly positive: a belief that is central to white Batswana constructions of collective identity and can be read, I argue, as a means to ensure an ongoing welcome in the nation. Through this exploration of white Batswana experiential and political autochthony, as manifest in their relationships to the social and physical environments of the Okavango, I argue that, in response to the inherent insecurity of their position as a white minority in a postcolonial African state, white Batswana have developed particular cultural values and practices that have allowed them to attain high levels of belonging.

Chapter 1

Connections to the Natural Environment K A teacher at Matshwane – the small, elite primary school with a student body of approximately 70 per cent Batswana and 30 per cent white citizens and expatriates – shared the following anecdote in a recorded discussion on a hot afternoon in November 2006: I had a boy when I was teaching in ’98, ’97 called Matthew Barnes from Australia. When he arrived he was a typical city boy from Australia, he was into fashion, into what he looked like, he would spend time in front of a mirror, do his hair up. He arrived, and that’s what he came with. The children here, if they’re 12 years old, they’re very much 12 years old. They’re not 15, they don’t look any different; they are children. And so he found them very childish, and their interests were totally different, and he didn’t really get on, and so on. And then the rains came and a terrapin [Pelusios bechuanicus, a species of turtle] came out of the ground, as they do when the rains come. And this terrapin came out at Matshwane, which is very dry, very barren. And he found this terrapin, and he brought it to me, and we chatted and “wow”, and he was really looking at it and smelling it – they stink – and so on. And I said, “You know, you’ve got to let it go”. And he was beside himself. He wanted to keep it. This was his pet, it was going to be his pet, and he was going to make a cage. I said, “But Matthew, this terrapin has been waiting for a year” – and we were going through a dry period – “waiting for a year, in dry earth, and this is life now for it. You cannot in any way make a home for this terrapin that it would be able to experience what it could experience out there”.

40  •  At Home in the Okavango

And we had a huge talk, and he cried, and he went through his parent’s divorce, and he went through all the difficulties, the separation and leaving his animals behind. It was a huge thing for him. But it was amazing because this terrapin brought out emotion that he might never have had. And ja there was awe, you know. This is what nature did. And eventually after him talking about all this, I said, “okay” – this is again nature teaching – I said, “you can keep it for a few days, you know, make a cage, watch it, look at it”. And I do believe in that. I believe in keeping wild pets, not pets, wild animals, such as snakes and turtles and tortoises and so on, but it’s only for a week… And so he kept it for four, five days and then he let him go. For his birthday later on that year he wanted a bird book, and all he wanted to do was go into the bush. The city and fashion and clothes, he wasn’t interested in that, and he started relating to the other kids and just having an amazing time. He wouldn’t sit and watch TV anymore, he’d get out there into the river, and he’d go walking, and on the weekends he’d want to go into the bush. And that was the transition of a few months. It was amazing.

The story of Matthew Barnes’ positive transformation through immersion in nature illustrates the central place of the bush within white Batswana cultural values. The identification against the urban ‘other’ is clear, as is the widely shared belief that a strong nature orientation is conducive to psychological health and well-being, positive community relationships, appropriate moral values and a fulfilling, worthwhile life. In this chapter I describe the ways in which experiential autochthony is underpinned for white Batswana by their construction of the Okavango environment as central to their identities, spirituality, social relationships and senses of belonging to the nation. This must be understood, I suggest, in light of the complexities of the subject position they inhabit as a white minority in postcolonial southern Africa; a position that renders nature a considerably less fraught means than the social environment through which to develop identities and senses of belonging. This chapter is divided into three sections. Firstly, I discuss the ways in which white Batswana relationships to the bush are central to their individual and collective identities. Secondly, I turn to the politics of such connections through describing the relationship between nationalism and place, including land rights and access, and the opportunities and tensions these incite. Finally, in describing white Batswana’s cognitive and embodied knowledge of the environment, I suggest that discourses of experiential autochthony result in high value being attributed to such knowledge, which is mobilised as a key resource both economically, as a commodity within the tourism industry, and symbolically, in terms of senses of belonging.

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Identity and the Land Articulating Emotional and Spiritual Connections to Place One Sunday afternoon I accompanied Richard to his brother Tony’s house for a braai (BBQ), where Tony pulled out a shoebox of old slides he had recently been given by his father. They were both excited to revisit their childhood through the photos, which showed the boys hunting antelope, sitting in an outdoor bath, playing with Bushmen children in the Kalahari, posing with crocodiles and pythons, and working on cars with their Dad: a collection of experiences characteristic of Okavango life. The significance of place in determining cultural identities and influencing social relationships has long been established in the social sciences. In arguing that human cognition is fundamentally constituted in and through place, Malpas (1999: 15–16) goes so far as to suggest ‘there is no possibility of understanding human existence – and especially human thought and experience – other than through an understanding of place and locality’. The nature of the relationships of people to place is integral to a study of experiential autochthony, as place is vital to identity construction and connects people to the local community, their past and the nation. For Richard and Tony, the world depicted in the photographs of their youth has had a great impact on who they are today. They identify as bush people, who derive not only their identity, spirituality and ways of knowing from the bush, but also their livelihoods (one as a hunter, the other as a photographic guide). The experiences of youth, and the values, knowledge and skills developed ‘in’ place, are at the core of who they have become. In this way, growing up in the wildlife-rich Okavango provides the framework for how the world is constructed and perceived for white Batswana. Collective identities are premised in shared values, experiences, histories and memories. This is not to say they are stagnant, homogeneous and come pre-formed out of the past. Rather, collective identities develop both organically, as a result of influences in the natural and social environments, and through a substantial degree of conscious construction. As John and Jean Comaroff (2004b: 190) point out, in the postmodern and postcolonial world, identities – like lifestyles, consumer items, religion and many other aspects of life – are, to a significant extent, subject to choice. Every culture is emplaced, in the sense of an inevitable familiarity with the environment, but the significance of the role of place is determined by a group’s particular values. Rather than emphasising their global ties through the tourist economy, or their genealogical links with Europe, white Batswana firmly embrace the local through identifying

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as bush people. This identification enhances belonging through placing high value on those cultural practices, skills and knowledge that render white Batswana inseparable from the Okavango environment. This plays out in multiple ways. The central role of the bush within white Batswana identities is patently obvious through the simple fact that they talk about the bush incessantly. Much bush talk takes the form of stories recounted about incidents occurring in the bush. Stories are delivered in a highly expressive manner, rich with local metaphor, imagery and colloquialisms, with sentences punctuated with smatterings of Setswana, animal calls and impersonations. In addition, they discuss the weather, the possibility of rain, the heat and the dust, often giving impassioned, and at times poetic, descriptions of various aspects of nature. They enthuse over animal sightings and are particularly animated when discussing unusual animal behaviour. They talk about fires, storms and changes to the environment; and they discuss the annual flood, continually. As one visiting hunter records: ‘The flood, as it is known to the locals, is the subject of more saloon chatter than the rugby scores, if you can imagine, and its progress is chartered like the Nasdaq in Times Square’ (Wieland 2002: 29). Indeed, since leaving the field, emails I receive from white Batswana friends invariably include an update on the flood as the first order of business. White Batswana language is peppered with metaphors referring to the land. Many people have nicknames that link them to a certain place or natural event. A young white Motswana woman, Sephai, for example, was born on the day of the first rains of the year after a particularly dry summer. The Tswana midwife declared that, like the rain (pula), she was a gift from God and told her parents they should name her Sephai, which means ‘the first rain’ in Setswana. Another well-liked young man is affectionately referred to as ‘Gironkey’, as people joke he is tall like a giraffe, but dumb like a donkey. People describe getting abjectly drunk as ‘getting babooned’ in mockery of the primate, which is typecast as foolish. A joke I heard retold endlessly was one about the four stages of drunkenness in a bottle of brandy: the first quarter turns a person into a peacock, strutting about proudly; the second transforms them into a lion, full of aggression and bravado; the third sees them behaving like a baboon, hanging from their friends and talking nonsense; while the final quarter turns them into a pig, rolling around in their own excrement. Dominy (2003: 64) argues that through this kind of linguistic evocation of the environment, ‘landscape becomes encoded in character’. She cogently describes how ‘naturalising conventions and discourses prevail as humans culturalise nature and naturalise culture, in ways that script them physically, sensually, emotionally, cognitively and socially as part of a habitat’ (Dominy

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2003: 64). The pervasive presence of bush metaphors in white Batswana discourse is but one palpable aspect of the mutual constitution of nature and culture in the Okavango.

‘Falling in Love’ with the Okavango Central to white Batswana’s bush talk is the articulation of a strong emotional bond with the Okavango, which constitutes the most striking idiosyncrasy among their cultural values. This conspicuous trait serves an important function by strengthening white Batswana senses of belonging through the creation and performance of a localised identity. They often use metaphors of love when verbalising their fond sentiments, describing the bush as ‘beautiful’ and speaking of ‘falling in love’ with particular landscapes. Richard suggests he is mocked by visitors, who see his obsession with the bush as difficult to comprehend: People have commented before, they’ve come jolling [partying] with a bunch of us, and you meet someone at the bar and, “hey, come, we’re going for a drive, we’ll go in the boat”, or whatever. And we, to each other, we can’t ever stop saying, “Jesus man, look at that! Fuck, is that not incredible? It is so beautiful!” And people are like, “what are you looking at?” And we are just like, “that, man, over there!” “How can you guys be so...?” And it’s like nothing, it’s like a fucking bird sitting on a branch, “how can you be so enthusiastic about it?” But it is just so overwhelming. You know I love textures, and I love colours, and I love trees, and I can’t stop looking at them, and they just excite me like you can’t believe!

That Richard and friends take pleasure in performing the role of bushobsessed eccentrics is clear, yet their love of the land is genuine. On countless trips to the bush, I witnessed white Batswana’s boundless enthusiasm for observing wildlife. Indeed, during the course of my fieldwork, I struggled at times to match their zeal for all things Okavango. On one such occasion I had a friend visiting from Australia, and a white Motswana friend invited us on a night game drive. Having consumed a large meal with wine that evening, both my visiting friend and I dozed off after about half an hour of sitting by a waterhole awaiting the possible arrival of lions that we had heard roaring in the distance at dusk. We were woken well over an hour later by our white Motswana friend when, as he had predicted, the lions had come to the waterhole to drink. The time we had spent snoozing, he had spent with his binoculars trained on

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the waterhole, eagerly anticipating the arrival of the lions. Rather than becoming complacent, the fact that he would see lions most days only served to enhance his enthusiasm for this species that he considered his totem, and sacrificing sleep to wait for a possible sighting – despite his dawn work commitments the following day – was, he felt, a small price to pay. White Batswana’s generous hospitality, underpinned by pride in showing off their region’s wonders, is also evident in this anecdote. While the reasons for the extent of white attachments to land may be influenced by a politics of avoidance in regard to the local sociopolitical environment – the possibility of which I discuss below – this does not alter the fact of the intensity of their attachments. A number of writers have posited that the relationship of whites to the African landscapes in which they live is one of disconnect, alienation and ongoing struggle (e.g., Hughes 2005; Nuttall 1996; MacKenzie 1988). In the early colonial period, particularly, the prevailing notion was that the southern African environment was too harsh for European sensibilities. The climate, dangerous wildlife and landscapes of the various colonies were seen as brutal, difficult and testing environments that had negative effects on the health of white bodies and emotional states in the long term. David McDermott Hughes (2005: 159), for example, writes of the ‘sense of cultural displacement and spatial disorientation’ of whites in Zimbabwe and South Africa; while in a subsequent article he endorses novelist Doris Lessing’s suggestion that ‘[a]ll white African literature is the literature of exile, not from Europe but from Africa (1958: 700)’ (Hughes 2006: 271). Despite the fact that some of his interlocutors are ninth-generation African, and fifth-generation Zimbabwean, Hughes (2006: 280) contends that white Zimbabweans persist in trying to recreate British landscapes, suggesting they build dams in an attempt to recreate the aesthetic of British lakes. In my experience, I have found that water is valued as much, if not more, in southern Africa as England, and aesthetic tastes reflect this. Moreover, as I understand it, dam building is a fairly standard farming practice in dry regions in many parts of the world, rendering this a somewhat unconvincing argument. These kinds of descriptions of alienation from the landscape are very different from what I witnessed in the Okavango, and indeed in parts of South Africa and Zimbabwe, where people’s celebration of the African landscape is one of their most dominant cultural values. This is supported by other scholars of Zimbabwe, who have similarly documented strong attachments to land among white residents (e.g., Pilossof 2012; Rutherford 2004; Ranger 1999). As Thornton (1996: 153–54) describes in the South African context:

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Both White and Black people who call themselves Africans identify with the land, and claim it as their inalienable right. Both appeal to the blood that has been spilt on it, the dead that have been buried in it, the food that can be coaxed from it and, again and again, the beauty of it.

White Batswana scathingly refer to England as ‘Mud Island’, and they have no desire to emulate the British environment and climate, which they see as vastly inferior to their own. Hughes’s (2006) approach is premised in a postcolonial critique of whiteness in Zimbabwe that mobilises ideas of disconnection to land in order to make a broader political argument. Yet, care must be taken not to conflate or confuse the political and experiential aspects of connections to land in this regard. The authenticity of settlers’ love of the African landscape is difficult to dispute, even though on a political level it is certainly open for debate as to whether they have any political right to such feelings. As Draper, Spierenburg and Wels (2004: 345) argue – and, indeed, as Hughes (2010) acknowledges in subsequent writings –‘nationalizing through nature’ is a common feature of white settler-descendant cultures.

A Love of Wildlife, and a Hint of Misanthropy Central to white Batswana’s love of the Okavango is an endless infatuation with wildlife. Animals are not only appreciated in the wild, but are also desired as pets. Domestic animals, particularly dogs and cats, are kept by virtually all white Batswana and expatriates in Maun. Injured wild animals – or animals in the wrong place at the wrong time, as in the case of Matthew’s terrapin – are ‘rescued’, kept as pets and usually at some point set free. From squirrels, to lion cubs, to baby buffalo, everyone has stories of animals they have brought into their homes and nurtured. Richard described the many and varied pets he would smuggle across the border to boarding school in South Africa and back home again: We had a crocodile, we had a kingfisher … we had a crab that lived with us for about three years. I had a baboon spider that lived with me for about five years. Gerbils, mice that we used to catch, anything, but there had to be a pet all the time. There was always a pet somewhere, anything that could live in your shirt.

Richard’s list of pets demonstrates that it is not only the charismatic megafauna that elicits white Batswana interest, and different individuals form connections with various particular species. In a conversation with

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Deon, the Afrikaans-speaking man originally from Ghanzi, he told me that he felt connected to leopards because they are private, secretive and solitary: The nice thing about the leopard is they’re fucking clever and fast. Amazing cats. My totem. Secretive characters like me. Very, very, very secretive, nobody knows anything about them, which is excellent. But the leopard’s got everything. Everything you need, it’s got it. I don’t really have friends here. It’s just the normal crowd. I can’t say I’ve got a best mate. That’s why I love leopard so much, because I see myself as one as well.

This is interesting not just in terms of the projection of shared qualities and the deep identification with an individual species described as a kind of totemism, but also in terms of the misanthropic elements. Deon was not the only white Batswana to articulate a love of animals over people. Many white Batswana, men particularly, describe considerable periods spent alone in the bush, where they have formed bonds with wild animals. Another white Motswana man of Afrikaner background worked for more than a year alone in the Kalahari building a tourism camp. I asked him about the experience of being without human company for months at a time. ‘I spent lots of time on my own in my life’, he responded. ‘I think I’m a bit crazy. I was just born shy of people, that’s all, so the time I spent alone was just because I am afraid of people. I feel like I have more of an affinity with animals than I feel with people. I feel safer with animals’. For these individuals who feel somewhat peripheral to the community, a sense of belonging is found through relationships, real or imagined, with certain species of animals. There is, at times, a racial element within articulations of misanthropy. As I discuss in subsequent chapters, white people see themselves as champions of the environment in a conservation sense, while some practices of individuals of other ethnic groups, such as the dumping of rubbish in bush areas around Maun, are disparaged by the white community. The notion of connecting with animals above people is, consequently, to an extent attributable to a sense of alienation from sociopolitical belonging. However, misanthropic sentiments are most commonly expressed in the more abstract sense of humans as a species. I asked a white Motswana woman if there were problems with introduced species in the Okavango, to which she replied: ‘the only problem in the delta is humans’, in reference to the belief that people are a threat to the environment. This was not a reference to African communities, but was made in the course of a conversation about the tourism industry and the environmental damage

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it facilitates. Franklin (1999: 3) describes a burgeoning late twentiethcentury phenomenon in the West whereby ‘a generalized misanthropy has set in: according to this view humans are a destructive, pestilent species, mad and out of control. By contrast, animals are essentially good, balanced and sane’. In this vein, one evening around the campfire on safari with a group of ten clients, Richard told a story about working in a lodge deep in the delta. In an effort to impress clients, a South African expatriate with whom he was working purposefully placed himself in an extremely dangerous position by approaching on foot a pride of twenty-eight lions. Richard recounted loading his .458 rifle, while saying to another colleague: ‘If a lion comes out, I’m going to shoot [the man] to save him the pain, because I’m not going to kill a lion’. Richard presumably adopted this way of thinking from his father. Richard’s Dad is a quiet, introverted man, who often appears to be more interested in the bush than people. He is greatly respected for his phenomenal knowledge of the region, his unwavering bush devotion and for his eccentricities in this regard. One Saturday afternoon I sat in a Maun bar with Richard, his uncle and an old Bugakhwe man, who had worked as a tracker with Richard’s father for many years. They recited story after story about Richard’s father’s idiosyncrasies, laughing about his frequent disappearances into the bush, often alone for months at a time. They told a story about his becoming frustrated by clients asking too many questions on one particular safari. He stopped the vehicle unexpectedly and, without a word to the clients, walked off into the bush. Several hours later another vehicle came past, and the distressed tourists told the guide what had happened. The guide set out into the bush and found Richard’s father fast asleep in a tree just a few minutes’ walk from the vehicle. Richard’s father explained that the clients were asking too many questions, and he needed a break. This was a story I heard recounted fondly on numerous occasions, and the great respect community members hold for the tale’s eccentric protagonist demonstrates the shared values of independence, defiance of the structured nature of the tourist industry – and the infringements on people’s freedom it entails – and on the preference often expressed for the bush over human society.

Connections to the Climate Related to the love of land and wildlife is a connection to the extreme climate of the region. With the Kalahari Desert constituting 75 per cent of the country, the arid conditions and heat are consuming features of

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the landscape. Rainfall is seasonal with 95 per cent occurring between October and April, while temperatures are hot, averaging over 30˚ Celsius during this period (Manzungu, Mpho and Mpale-Mudanga 2009: 207). Sensory experiences – smells, sounds, sights, tastes and tactile sensations – constitute to a considerable extent people’s connections to, and knowledge of, place. Some months after I left the field, I received an email from a 45-year-old white Motswana friend. He had been visiting Southeast Asia, where he had briefly flirted with the idea of staying on and finding work. He wrote: I’m back in Botswana, I was quite happy to get back in some respects. Asia was great, but I started pining for the open spaces, blue skies and my black brethren. Funny how one forgets about the heat, dust, shit vegetables, mosquitoes and flies when one gets tired of the crowds and pollution.

Pocock (2008: 79) describes how sensory experiences were amongst the most evocative experiences of place for early twentieth-century tourists to the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, Australia. Many of these experiences were negative, including sunburn, stings and injuries from coral and sea life; yet, these were the most memorable aspects of their visit. Much like the tourists to the Great Barrier Reef, shared experiences of adversity at the hands of the harsh climate – including the ‘heat, dust, shit vegetables, mosquitoes and flies’ – form the basis of a bond and are indelibly inscribed into the subjectivities of Okavango community members. Warne (2004: 61) captures the extremity of the heat of October: ‘Maun broils in temperatures of 100 plus. Hot winds sandblast the town, and the sky becomes white dust. The tambourine symphony of cicadas is deafening. Maunites call October suicide month. Even the jaywalking donkeys look more weary of living than usual’. The provenance of October as ‘suicide month’ is said to hark back to the protectorate years when suicides were not infrequent among young British civil servants living in isolated villages across Bechuanaland. White citizens today speak affectionately about the searing heat, suggesting their bodies are accustomed and adapted to the conditions. Grace from Gaborone claimed a kind of spiritual affinity: I joke about it with my brother. We live in the world, you know [laughs]. We live in the sun, the rain, the hot and the cold. I think that is a very important elemental part of our lives, and for me to experience that is extremely important. Deep down inside, there is some kind of instinctive, animal, primal thing … And those first summer rains; there is just this electricity in the air! Everyone’s feeling it, and rainfall is just the most

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magical, magical thing that you could ever possibly imagine! And that’s coming from a lekgoa [white] girl, who went to a nice private school in Gaborone, but I can still tell you, to this day, those first rains are so elementally important inside of me.

Evident in Grace’s comment is the belief that environmental phenomena catalyse strong emotional responses. The intensity of the October heat leaves tempers frayed, until the first rains of the season around November have people in rapturous moods. As Lanting (1993: 86) notes, ‘everything and everyone responds to rain in this land’. When the rain finally comes the transformation is phenomenal, and from a stark dustbowl, Maun becomes a place of colour and energy, and joyful cries of ‘pula!’ can be heard all over town.

Spirituality and the Land Grace’s comment that even for a lekgoa there is a deep spiritual connection to climate reflects a common perception of the shallowness of white people’s relationships to land. In addition to critiquing the lack of recognition for settler-descendants’ emotional ties to land, Dominy (2001: 207–9) argues against the stereotype of white culture’s relationship to land being primarily materialistic. Like the Pakeha (white New Zealander) farmers Dominy describes, white Batswana very much look to nature as a source of spirituality. Very few have formal religious affiliations. One woman described her mother as Anglican, but told me she does not believe in God. She spread her arms wide indicating the landscape and said, ‘this is my religion!’ Similarly, Richard commented: ‘I’m not religious. I think that is my religion. I get my peace from the trees and the water and the animals. There’s a very strong link, I [will] crumble, melt if I have to go and live in some other part of the world’. This statement exemplifies the kinds of romanticised discourses of autochthony frequently articulated by white Batswana, where ties to the land are said to be so strong that the individual will suffer deeply if estranged from the homeland. Contrary to this hyperbolic statement, Richard has in fact travelled extensively and lived abroad for extended periods. Yet, the statement clearly expresses the kind of sentimental attachments formed with the land. There are parallels evident here with that which Cronon (1996: 26, 36) describes as the construction of nature, as ‘a secular deity in this post-romantic age’ that is looked to ‘as a stable external source of nonhuman values against which human actions can be judged without much

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ambiguity’. Nature is perceived to provide the perfect model for living, characterised by numerous complex parts constituting a whole and perfect order. In this vein, Richard said: I keep turning back to animals, because they explain so much if you look at them for long enough and watch their behaviour. [They explain] things about human nature, which we’ve through our consciousness gone and questioned and made issues of, which in some ways are natural, and should just be left the way they were ... Like discipline is one thing that you find if you keep watching animals. You see this very straightforward rule of discipline, which, if you don’t adhere to, you will die.

Animals are explicitly constructed here as a model for human life. Anand Pandian (2008) demonstrates the parallels in a southern Indian community between controls exerted on animals and the governance of people. Pandian’s (2008: 92) interlocutors are said to value restraint and hegemonic submission to authorities within both animals and people. By contrast, white Batswana articulate the belief that animals must be able to live wild, free lives, as described above in the teacher’s insistence that the terrapin be set free. By extension, a central cultural value of white Batswana involves the defiance of restrictive controls and a high value placed on freedom. In both instances, there are very direct parallels between culturally constructed perceptions of appropriateness within animal and human lifestyles. White Batswana bush-based religiosity is also evident in their turning to the natural environment as a source of healing. The parents of a much-loved 4-year-old boy, who tragically died in a car accident, took great consolation from the Thamalakane River throughout their mourning process. They went to the river in the hours after the accident, and close friends in the community came and mourned with them. The father of the child spent hours every day in the weeks following the accident grieving by the river. At the funeral, a former priest and close family friend presided over the ceremony and had been instructed to provide a non-Christian service. He spoke of life as a river, with each individual constituting a particle of water that eventually joins up as part of the great river of life. He said that the deceased young boy was still present in all the animals, trees and living beings around. He said the boy was born of the earth and had returned to it, in the perpetual cycles of life, death and renewal. This belief was reiterated by a number of community members in the days that followed and was a source of great comfort. This conceptualisation is reminiscent of Christian belief, but also the mythological derivation of the notion of autochthony. From the earth we are born and,

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in time, to the earth we all return. The normative practice of burial in the Okavango renders this return to the earth literal, as well as symbolic. There is considerable individual variation within white Batswana’s spiritual engagement with nature, and some community members profess to have mystical connections with animals. Sitting one evening with Richard and the locally based filmmakers for whom he freelance guides, a conversation arose around encounters of an unusual nature with animals. The South African expatriate production manager, a woman in her early forties and a long-term Botswana resident, told a story about feeling a strong sense of unease one day when she walked into her Maun office. She began to look around and discovered a spitting cobra beneath her desk. A friend of hers interrupted at this point to describe this as intuition, but she articulated it differently, explaining her belief that a person’s being is not constrained to linear time. Consequently, rather than this being intuition, she felt that it was a pre-emptive memory of the event. Richard then became animated describing similar experiences. He said that he often had dreams at night on safari that felt like real experiences. He described one occasion when he awoke knowing that he would find a leopard that day. He said that he had dreamed that he was flying through the area near to where they were camped and had seen impala everywhere and then, finally, a leopard. The next day he said that he did, indeed, find a leopard. These kinds of beliefs lead to a sense of intimacy with individual animals. The production manager went on to tell of an experience she had summonsing three lionesses to her camp. They were in the midst of making a documentary about a pride of lionesses over a period of several months. She described asking the lions to come back to their camp, so that they would not waste hours in locating them for filming in the morning. That night, she got up and left the tent to go to the toilet and, much to her surprise, the lions were under a tree right beside their tent. She woke her partner to tell him that they had come. He was alarmed and told her to return to the tent immediately. Laughing, she recounted how she had refused, saying, ‘no, you come and look at the lions!’ She returned to the tent eventually and then shared an exchange with one of the lionesses, who came to her tent where it looked inside, just breathing calmly, while she looked outside, breathing with it. She described this as a profound inter-species communication. While the production manager claimed a sense of total trust between herself and the lionesses, her partner expressed concerns about her communing with animals and felt she was taking dangerous risks. He told of similar incidences of her getting very close to wild elephants on foot, where they had mock charged her before pulling back at the last minute. She responded, saying that she

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could perceive the boundaries clearly with different individual animals, and so felt she was not, in fact, taking risks. In the Australian context, Mulcock (2006: 96) argues that the kinds of spiritual belonging to land most commonly associated with Aboriginal people are seen as the ultimate connection. In the same vein, through espousing these kinds of beliefs, Okavango community members are implicitly making a claim to the deepest forms of connectedness to the local wildlife and, by extension, to place. Nature-based religiosity in lieu of affiliation with any of the numerous local Christian denominations sets white Batswana firmly apart from the majority population, for whom membership to a congregation is usually a core aspect of identity and community life. On Sundays, Maun’s churches overflow with worshippers, yet there are few, if any, white faces in attendance. Despite the range of denominations represented in the region, from the long-established Western missionary organisations to the African churches, including the vastly popular Zionists, white citizens seldom participate. Their bush-based religiosity illustrates not only a core cultural boundary between them and their compatriots, but is also emblematic of their identification with the natural above the social environment.

Nationalism and Place In describing white Batswana’s connections to the natural environment, I am not suggesting that this kind of relationship is an inevitable outcome of experiential autochthony. Jimenez (2003: 144), for example, writes of a city in Chile where its autochthons claim to despise living. Rather, white Batswana’s love of the Okavango is a culturally determined characteristic that serves an important function. Identification with the land is a common feature of settler societies where relationships to the broader community are often complex. Many white Batswana and their forebears migrated from politically volatile situations in various nations in southern and East Africa. Many have lived through, and in some cases been active in opposing, violent Independence struggles. As a consequence, one reading implies that white Batswana’s love of the sparsely populated wilderness of the Okavango functions as a means of escaping these unsettling histories, and African people generally. This certainly holds true for some. Take, for example, the following quote from a hunter’s son about his father’s migration from East Africa to Botswana:

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Kenya was pretty developed, and hunters in those days were going into Congo and Angola and Sudan and really remote, wild, wild [places]. And then to come to Botswana! I mean in the sixties this area was just wildlife and not many people. It was undiscovered pretty much and relatively easy to operate in. And there was none of that conflict situation, the colonial/ Independence transition that you were getting all over the rest of Africa. Botswana was just idyllic, pristine.

The value placed on sparsely populated, wildlife-rich areas is clear, as is the desire to avoid confronting and engaging with the postcolonial transition. While the comment was made in relation to commercial hunting interests, in describing Botswana as ‘undiscovered’ there are elements of the colonial paradigm of discursively erasing African populations. White Zimbabweans professed attachment to land is argued to go hand in hand with ‘a short-sightedness and inability to connect to the political and social currents’ (Pilossof 2012: 156). Some Batswana believe such short-sightedness is also evident in white Batswana’s bush preoccupation. One 25-year-old woman, who identifies as coloured on account of having a Motswana mother and an American father, took a very critical view of the white community’s (both expatriates and citizens) bush orientation. In an interview she described her experience of moving to Maun from Gaborone to work in the tourism industry: Here, the first thing they ask you is, “are you passionate about the bush?” And the answer to that question is, “I’m passionate about Botswana, and I’m passionate about what my country’s about, and I’m passionate about where we’re going … That is what I am passionate about”. I mean these guys here; they are obsessed with the bush! And I can’t help but think that that is absolutely terrible. The only thing that a lot of these guys have is Maun. They’ve never been to Francistown or Mahalapye; they think this is Botswana.

Many Okavango white citizens (and long-term expatriates) certainly conform to this paradigm. Visits to Gaborone tend to be limited to the use of hospital facilities, while engagement with the larger towns, such as Serowe and Mahalapye, is very limited. Many Batswana see white residents as hiding-out in the region, safe in their assurance that they dominate the economy via the tourism industry and so need not engage with the rest of ‘real’ Botswana. Such a view supports the contention that some white Batswana construct national identity vis-à-vis the bush in lieu of developing positive and meaningful connections with the majority Batswana. Yet, this is not the case for all white Batswana. Grace, who

54  •  At Home in the Okavango

grew up in Gaborone before moving to the Okavango as a young adult, claimed that for her: It’s Botswana, it’s home. In this country you can put me anywhere, and I will love it. You can put me in the crappiest, ugliest village, and I’ll just be like, “ah, I’m home!” You cross the border, and you just go, “aaah!” [sighs deeply]. You can meet anyone from Botswana, you meet them, and you just instantly get on with them. It’s the weirdest thing.

While there is an element of hyperbole in this statement, Grace’s subscription to ideas of the imagined community and the nationalisation of space are clearly evident. For Grace, as with a number of other white Batswana, national identity is not limited to the bush, but extends to the African community. White Batswana’s nationalising through nature takes a different form to that attributed to other white African groups. Of white Zimbabweans connections to land, Hughes (2005: 160) suggests that ‘some have chosen – almost as an act of will – to identify with the continent as a whole, rather than with any one country or even with the southern subcontinent’. Within this mode of thinking, white African perceptions of nature are characterised by a desire for a mythical, pre-national, pre-political Africa (Pilossof 2012: 174; Draper, Spierenburg and Wels 2004: 345). The statement of the hunter’s son supports the notion that some such sentiments persist. However, for the most part, the strong identification and connectedness to the natural environment of white Batswana is very specific to Botswana, with white Batswana exhibiting strongly nationalistic sentiments, while firmly embracing the postcolonial polity. YuvalDavis (2004: 218–19) makes a compelling argument for the significance of borders to the imagined community of a nation, and borders certainly hold considerable significance for white Batswana, both on a symbolic and pragmatic level. The act of crossing from South Africa, Zimbabwe or Namibia via land, or touching down in an aeroplane on home soil, is described as eliciting a huge sense of relief and happiness. Returning to a place of familiarity, and the safety and confidence this inspires, is both symbolised and realised by the act of border crossing. This is particularly pertinent as neighbouring nations are seen as characterised by more volatility than Botswana. Patriotic sentiments extend to the nation’s wildlife, where community members describe an affinity with Botswana’s fauna, which they see as exhibiting different behavioural patterns to animals of the same species in other countries. Tony the hunter, for example, says he has never been charged by a buffalo in Botswana, while he has on several occasions

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elsewhere. He says that Botswana buffalo are more passive and relaxed than those in other parts of Africa. Similarly, a female professional guide who runs mobile safaris through Zimbabwe and Botswana commented, ‘game-wise it’s much, much better here in Botswana than in Zimbabwe. The animals are more relaxed. I’ve never seen leopards as relaxed as you get here’. Botswana nationals are stereotyped as easy-going, peaceable and relaxed, and attributing analogous traits to both animals and humans within the nation points to the depth of subscription to nationalistic sentiments among white Batswana, along with their perceived intimacy with and connection to local wildlife. Such sentiments are extended to certain domestic animals. Cattle are of central economic and symbolic significance to the Tswana, and there is considerable national pride in Botswana being the only African nation to meet the exacting requirements allowing exportation of beef to the European Union (EU). While the fencing infrastructure separating cattle from wildlife to meet EU disease control stipulations is the cause of much consternation to conservation-concerned white Batswana, as well as pastoralists whose grazing access has been restricted, most nonetheless share in a nationalistic celebration of cattle, and consume with relish that which they perceive as the unparalleled quality and taste of Botswana beef. Like animals, plants are important symbols of the nation, and there is a preference shown for native species among white Batswana. Richard is an avid gardener and grows predominantly indigenous plants. As he is not connected to town services and uses only tank water, he depends on the sporadic rain to keep his garden alive. Natives tend to be far hardier and better able to survive the dry spells than many of the introduced species that are readily available in the region. Richard says that he finds natives aesthetically pleasing and is conscious of the fact that they pose no environmental threat. White Batswana interest in native plants can also be read as reinforcing local identification. In this vein, Mulcock and Trigger (2008) argue that a sense of spiritual belonging is achieved by settler-descendant Australians through planting native species. Similarly, Jean and John Comaroff (2001: 650) evocatively demonstrate the ways in which nature serves as a powerful metaphor for belonging through analysing discourses of aliens and autochthons, encompassing both plants and people in South Africa. Seen in this light, the planting of natives among white Batswana is not only practical, but also serves to strengthen their connection to place.

56  •  At Home in the Okavango

Land Rights and Issues Relationships between nationalism and place are necessarily mediated by the nature and form of rights and access to land. In the Ngamiland district, 79.3 per cent of land is zoned as tribal, while that remaining is held by the state, the majority of which is zoned for wildlife, conservation and tourism purposes in the form of national parks, game reserves and Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs), which are further divided into Controlled Hunting Areas (CHAs) (see Map 4). Significantly, there is no freehold title in the region. Based on the traditional Tswana three-tiered land use system, Batswana are entitled to lease a residential plot, ploughing lands and a cattle post, and they pay only administrative costs to the tribal authority, the Tawana Land Board, for the privilege. While it normally takes several years within the extremely bureaucratic processes of the land boards, those citizens equipped with the knowledge and resources required to navigate the system can attain long leases to land with minimal financial output. Land is distributed by the land boards as either customary or common law land. While common law land is accessible to all, citizens alone are entitled to land under customary law. ‘Though allottees cannot assume perpetual rights to such land, most often they assume such rights, and pass on their titles to their children’ (Plantec Africa 2003: 118). Under this system land cannot technically be sold; however, developments or improvements on the land can, and the reality of the situation is that ‘informally, fees and payments continue to change hands for land transfers between individuals’ (Werbner 2004: 113). At first glance this appears to be a remarkable and unusual policy in a continent characterised by land shortages and fierce competition over limited resources. However, as with many of the nation’s putatively egalitarian policies, access to land tends to be limited to those with the means and resources to either informally purchase land or to navigate the complex application system through the land boards. Minority advocates critique the tribal constitution of land boards, which is seen as privileging members of the eight dominant Tswana groups. Under the current system, individuals can apply to lease land, but only the eight Tswana merafe enjoy collective land rights (Nyati-Ramahobo 2002a: 18; Chebanne 2002: 50). While the Tribal Land Amendment Act (1993) theoretically allows for a citizen, irrespective of ethnic background, to apply for land from any of the nation’s land boards, customary chiefs and headmen continue to hold considerable power over the allocation of plots, which they at times abuse through giving preferential treatment to applicants of shared ethnic background (Werbner 2004: 112).

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Map 4  Northern Botswana Land Use Source: Ngami Data Services.

Furthermore, Werbner (2004: 110–12) writes of people’s confusion in regard to the language of the land boards, and their variable implementation of government policy. He observes that the land boards are the most ‘controversial and less loved’ of any of the government’s arms (Werbner 2004: 110). The nation’s poor, and particularly those classed as remote area dwellers, have the least access to education and employment and consequently lack the necessary skills, knowledge and resources (such as the income for transport and communication) to obtain land. The fraught battle between the state and various Bushmen groups over access and rights to live and hunt in their traditional lands – most famously the

58  •  At Home in the Okavango

Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) – demonstrates the considerable inequities inherent in the current system. In addition to challenges in accessing tribal land, the large portion of the region set aside for national parks, game reserves and commercial cattle ranching, often results in minimal land being available in the ancestral homes of those deemed remote area dwellers. In Botswana, 17 per cent of the land is engaged as national parks and game reserves and a further 22 per cent is designated as WMAs (Mbaiwa 2005b: 144). Conservation and tourism activities thus occupy a phenomenal 39 per cent of the land mass. In addition, the increasing privatisation and commodification of land for the commercial cattle industry is resulting in increased competition over decreasing land resources. The rural poor, who are most reliant on natural resources for their livelihoods, are the most disenfranchised by the loss of land access such developments ensure. Tensions between various sectors of the community are increasing as a result, as I discuss further in the following chapter. In contrast to certain other minorities, as an elite group, white Batswana have the knowledge and resources to enable them to navigate the land boards, and they generally express satisfaction with the opportunities for virtually free land that the land tenure system affords them. Many claim to value land less as a commodity than as a means to connection to place and lifestyle. In Richard’s words: ‘I’m applying for a piece of land because I want to live there … I don’t see it as an investment, land. It’s home’. Not long after I left the field, and after several years of waiting, Richard was allocated a long-term lease on a large residential plot. For white Batswana, this access to land is highly valued and is integral to their sense of belonging. It also demonstrates the ways in which citizenship and autochthony effectively serve as forms of capital. Hilgers (2011: 41) rightly suggests that ‘the ability to point to one’s autochthonous roots is to assure oneself greater access to a city’s resources’. That white citizens are entitled to virtually free land in a postcolonial African nation evidences Botswana’s exceptionalism in the region. Land rights – the ultimate symbol of belonging for many – tend to run to those with the longest history in a locale, or those who have attained rights through conquest or redress from colonial appropriation of lands (Dorman Hammett and Nugent 2007: 16–17). Much of the interracial tension in neighbouring nations has stemmed from the ongoing injustice relating to the colonial appropriation of land by white settlers. Nowhere has this tension been played out more dramatically than in Zimbabwe, where the reclamation of white farms since 2000 has been the latest in a history of violent interracial clashes over land. In the height of colonialism, and subsequent to the 1931 enactment of The Land Apportionment

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Act, 2,500 white farmers in Rhodesia were allocated land holdings of forty-nine million acres, equating to half of the nation’s land resources (Palmer 1977: 185). The gross injustice of such vast land reserves being appropriated by such a small and racially determined group of settlers hardly needs to be spelled out. At the time of Independence in 1980, and after the bloody Liberation War, white farmers were producing around 90 per cent of the nation’s food. Consequently, the new President, Robert Mugabe, initially encouraged white farmers to stay on, despite his earlier promises of radical land reform (Palmer 1977: 167). The early nineties saw a major shift in policy, whereby the Land Acquisition Act opened the doors to compulsory acquisition in cases of underutilisation of land (Pilossof 2012: 29). White farmers took immediate measures to counter the move through, for example, stocking underutilised areas with wildlife, while contesting any claims made through the courts (Pilossof 2012: 29). The ineffectiveness of the Act and white farmers resistance to land reform measures, along with a downward-spiralling economy at the turn of the century, widespread poverty and the political insecurity these caused, soon led Mugabe to take drastic measures in the form of widespread and coordinated occupations of white commercial farms throughout the country (Pilossof 2012: 33ff). The discourse was that of a continuing battle against imperial domination, with Mugabe describing white farmers as ‘enemies’ of the state, justifying the violence towards white farmers and the numerous murders as the Third Chimurenga of the Liberation War (Pilossof 2012: 48–49). Mugabe’s equation of ethnic groups with territory was evident through slogans such as: ‘Africa for Africans, Europe for Europeans’ (Raftopoulos 2007: 183). In Zimbabwe, therefore, ‘the land has played a determining role as the key marker of a common struggle. It has formed the centrepiece of the ruling party’s construction of belonging, exclusion and history’ (Raftopoulos 2007: 187–88). Relative to their eastern neighbours, white Batswana are extraordinarily privileged to share citizen rights to leasehold land in the contemporary period. This stems from the very different histories of the two nations. In the colonial paradigm, 6 per cent of Botswana’s most fertile lands were allocated to white settlers in Ghanzi, Tati and the Tuli, Lobatse and Gaborone blocks. In the Okavango, however, no land was allocated to white settlers, but remained under tribal administration, as it does to this day. This is a critical difference in the history of this region relative to other parts of southern Africa, where fraught interracial relations stem in large part from the inequities around land distribution. This difference is central to white Batswana’s construction of history and sense of legitimacy in the postcolonial nation.

60  •  At Home in the Okavango

Interracial Connections through the Natural Environment Along with being a site of contestation, the land and natural environment are mobilised as a source of shared identification, with the international fame of the Okavango fostering national pride among Batswana of many ethnic backgrounds. In addition, the natural environment is a space for interracial connections through time shared in the bush and the exchange of information. Giddens (1984: 368) reminds us that ‘space is not an empty dimension along which social groupings become structured, but has to be considered in terms of its involvement in the constitution of systems of interaction’. The link between the natural and social environment in the Okavango for white citizens is made evident through the fact that while not all white Batswana are fluent in Setswana, the vast majority have an extensive vocabulary when it comes to Setswana words for flora and fauna, as well as place names in numerous local languages. This is facilitated in part by the requirement for this knowledge in obtaining a safari guide’s licence, where proficiency in Setswana terms is tested, but this vocabulary is also picked up through spending time with Batswana in the bush. Many Setswana terms for flora and fauna are utilised by white Batswana in daily speech: for example, the Setswana term Mochaba is used more frequently than the English ‘sycamore fig’ (Ficus sycamorus). For many words, white Batswana only know the Setswana term and not the English equivalent. I came across this on numerous occasions when questioning white Batswana about various things in the bush. One such example was the shooting sticks that Tony had fashioned on which to balance a rifle, which were made of a type of wood whose name he only knew in Setswana. Many white Batswana possess considerable knowledge of the ways in which Botswana’s various cultural groups have traditionally used plants and animals for food, clothing, medicine and other requirements. They possess skills, such as tracking animals and making fire from sticks, which they have learned from the Bushmen. Magole (2009a: 606) suggests that in contexts of unequal power relations, knowledge ‘exchange’ is more accurately read as appropriation. He describes the appropriation of Bushmen knowledge as directly entrenching their alienated position: While the rich ecological knowledge and survival skills of the San are acknowledged and indeed used for commercial gain, the unequal power relations between the San and other groups has limited the extent to which the San can negotiate and defend their livelihoods. Instead, the position and knowledge of other groups has strengthened, thanks to the San. (Magole 2009a: 606)

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Bolaane (2004: 405) similarly describes how the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP) temporarily hire Bugakhwe to teach newly recruited officers of the Moremi Game Reserve about animal behaviour, who then ‘after acquiring such knowledge … tend to ignore their “teachers”’. White Batswana build careers around their bush knowledge – some of which has been appropriated from the Bushmen, if not in the current generation, then previously – yet there are efforts towards redress, particularly as there is recognition that such knowledge is being lost among local people, who are being pushed towards different types of knowledge. Richard described the circumstances as follows: There are people the same age as me, local people who were born and grew up on islands in the delta and all over the place, and they can’t do a lot of the traditional things. They don’t make snares naturally anymore; they don’t know how to make fire out of rubbing sticks, a lot of stuff actually, which has been forgotten. A lot of them have been pushed towards the text book, the scientific knowledge, which I think is actually irrelevant because [tourists] can look that up on their own if they want to.

Loss of bush knowledge among the Wayeyi and Bushmen is certainly linked to the modernist orientation of the formal education and wage labour systems (see Bock 1998), as Richard mentions, yet it is also attributable to the alienation of people from access to gathering veld products, and, most particularly, to the restrictions on hunting instituted in the past few decades by the government. In particular, the use of snares was prohibited by the government years ago, owing to its alleged cruelty to the animal (Magole 2009a: 603). In addition, as a pastoral people, the politically dominant BaTawana have historically devalued bush-based livelihoods as uncivilised. This has no doubt contributed to the demise in bushcraft and knowledge among subordinate groups. BaTawana perceptions of the bush are changing, however, with the growth of the region’s lucrative nature tourism industry. The young MoTawana barman Ronny, for example, was born in Maun and has lived there all his life, yet, describes having spent very little time in the bush in the course of his upbringing. He says he only started to learn about the bush as an adult. Ronny studied for his guide’s licence from the Wildlife Training Institute in order to take a job poling tourists in mekoro (dugout canoes – sing. mokoro) into the delta. He says obtaining the licence was easy for him, as he is intelligent and interested in learning. He already knew the names of plants and animals in Setswana, but had to learn the English and scientific names. When he was young,

62  •  At Home in the Okavango

Ronny says he did not know much about animal behaviour, but learnt that, too, in order to obtain his guide’s licence. Unlike Ronny, Richard grew up very much in the bush. Richard feels that despite perceptions among many Batswana that scientific knowledge is the most advantageous epistemological grounding for work in tourism, tourists themselves tend to be most interested in local bushcraft. Consequently, Richard has been engaged in guide-training and mentoring of young Batswana guides, encouraging them to learn traditional bush skills and stories from older members of their communities. Richard has advanced his career as a specialist guide through impressing tourists with the bush knowledge he has learnt directly or indirectly from the Bushmen and Wayeyi, hence it is somewhat ironic that he is now teaching the value of traditional bushcraft within the global tourism nexus back to members of these same groups. While Richard’s guide training efforts aim to address the injustices, the situation demonstrates the privileged position white citizens occupy in the tourism industry, where their Western cultural capital in conjunction with their local knowledge is mobilised as an economic resource. The union of these two epistemological groundings unquestionably provides them with an advantage over Batswana of other ethnic backgrounds within the tourism economy. White Batswana’s extensive bush knowledge relative to the BaTawana also serves to reinforce their own sense of emplacement. In the course of a fishing weekend in the panhandle region, Richard and I encountered some BaTawana school teachers from Maun, whose boat was drifting far from the nearest settlement after their engine had failed. Richard looked at the engine before explaining, with perhaps a hint of condescension in his tone, the importance of monitoring the oil level in order to avoid seizing the engine. The teachers then noted the fishing gear in our boat and asked if we could give them some fish to take back to Maun, as they had failed to catch any that weekend. While I had been singularly unsuccessful, Richard had released the numerous fish he had caught that morning. Consequently, he pushed our boat back into the main channel and proceeded to commence casting. I watched the awe on the teachers’ faces as Richard proceeded to catch four tiger fish in quick succession on his fly line. After handing over the fish, we towed the teachers back to the closest settlement, and they went on their way. Incidents such as this greatly reinforce white Batswana identification as local through their performance of skills and knowledge more finely honed to negotiating the environment than those of members of the politically dominant BaTawana. That these pastoralists have historically had little to do with riverine life is beside the point for white Batswana, whose own deep connectedness is

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emphasised in such encounters, where they for once appear to be more Batswana than the BaTawana (cf. Chapter Four).

Bush Knowledge and Skills In this final section, I further explore the highly valued bush knowledge that white Batswana acquire through growing up in the region. The Okavango is the world’s largest inland delta, composed of an intricate network of lagoons, channels and floodplains covering at its peak approximately 13,000 square kilometres (Gieske 1997: 214). Knowing the Okavango requires constant engagement, as the dynamic nature of the system results in the floods unpredictably inundating some areas while leaving others dry, and in this way creating great changes over short periods of time. Knowledge of place goes beyond the cognitive to the embodied, and white Batswana possess highly developed corporeal and sensory skills, which are developed through, and are necessary for, walking in the bush, driving vehicles in rugged terrain, fixing broken vehicles and boats, riding horses, avoiding or dealing with situations with dangerous wildlife and handling weapons. These capabilities are central to what it means to be a white Motswana. According to Casey (1996: 34, emphasis in original) ‘bodies not only perceive but know places’, through a sort of participatory aesthetic gained from sensory engagement through walking on the land, touching, smelling, feeling and generally inhabiting place. All the senses are said by white Batswana to be essential in the bush, not least to ensure people’s safety. This was made clear to me one night in the bush when the manager of the camp I was visiting became uncomfortable as a young woman was playing guitar and singing. All the guests were enjoying the music immensely, yet, despite feeling bad for impinging on his guests’ enjoyment, the manager asked her to play more quietly. Lions are prevalent in the area, and he felt uneasy being unable to hear what was going on around camp. An additional ‘sixth sense’, otherwise described as instinct, is also widely believed to be mobilised in the bush. Tony believes that when you get lost in the bush, if you follow your instincts you are fine, but when you start trying to think logically, you get in trouble. Within this belief is an emphasis on corporeal above cognitive knowledge, of feeling rather than thinking one’s way around. Intuition and instinct are in this way seen as critical to safety. The remoteness of the Okavango and the small size of the population have the consequence of community members having fairly limited access to goods and services. Resourcefulness is a critical requirement in this environment and high value is placed on innovation, initiative,

64  •  At Home in the Okavango

creativity and the capacity to remain calm and positive while dealing with situations that arise. These skills and qualities are encapsulated in the much-used phrase of South African origin, ‘make a plan’. To make a plan is to fix something that is broken, to find an alternative means of doing something or getting somewhere, and to generally keep things moving, working and functioning. This value resonates with the Setswana notion of boitekanelo, or self-sufficiency, which the government promotes as a quality all citizens must strive to demonstrate. ‘Boitekanelo is the word used to translate “health” in the official discourses of the Botswana state, and the term has popular currency as a signifier of the kind of ablebodiedness necessary for manual labour’ (Klaits 2009: 8–9). While new communication technologies have to an extent negated the remoteness of the Okavango, the need for the ‘able-bodiedness’, skills, knowledge and qualities to ‘make a plan’ persists. Stories of things going wrong on safari are regaled with great delight. The most common disasters involve vehicle breakdowns and issues such as getting stuck in mud, sand and water. Luke and Mark, white Batswana in their forties and fifties respectively, run trans-Okavango boating adventures and, consequently, have an endless cache of stories of disasters necessitating an innovative plan. The less manufactured materials available, and the more dubious and dangerous the scenario, the more the story is told and enjoyed. Luke describes pulling the entire boat engine to pieces and repairing it with no tools except a single screwdriver midway through one trans-Okavango trip. They were stuck for more than a week making repairs on that occasion. He tells of another trip where the supply box was packed in such a way that the mosquito repellent was activated, and the entire can was sprayed throughout their food supplies. This kind of occurrence would never be seen as a reason to turn around, and the challenge of relying on a fishing rod and bush knowledge for food is relished. I was told on a number of occasions that the bush is the place where a person’s ‘true self’ emerges. In this vein, Luke tells me in earnestness that you can never really know someone until you have been with them after the vehicle has broken down deep in the bush, the cool box is empty (i.e., no alcohol remaining –this is considered a harsh reality, indeed) and there are no matches or food. Similarly, in an interview with Deon, he became frustrated trying to explain things and said he would take me out to the Kalahari: ‘[Then I can] show you what I’m made of, show you the real me’. He went on to say: ‘the thing is, I’m a bit lost talking to you sitting here. The way I do my thing is showing people. It will be a lot better for you to actually see it. This is artificial’. This rhetoric speaks to the premium placed on embodied over cognitive knowledge, as well as to the centrality of the bush in the construction of white Batswana identity.

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Moreover, on the level of anthropological research, this is an interesting comment indicating support for participant observation methodologies over interviewing, a sentiment with which I tend to agree. The opportunity to visit the Kalahari with Deon did not eventuate in the end, which was both unfortunate and a relief, as he had planned for us to go hunting with his Naro Bushmen friends on horseback, an endeavour to which my own embodied knowledge would not readily extend.

Intimacy in Wildlife Knowledge White Batswana know the majority of local plant and animal species and have detailed knowledge of their particular habitats, lifespans, anatomy, reproductive practices and, in the case of animals, their behavioural patterns, social practices and diet. From tracks, many white Batswana can determine the species of animal, the recentness of its presence and the speed at which it was moving. This intimate knowledge has resulted in an understanding of animals that emphasises similarities with humans; the perceived differences are of scale, not kind. For white Batswana, animals are never ‘it’, but always ‘he’ or ‘she’. Individuality is attributed to particular members of even lower-order species, which was evocatively described to me by a long-term expatriate documentary filmmaker in her sixties: We found that even beetles have personality. When we had to do a shoot of a beetle doing something specific, we would go out and collect fifty beetles, and we would have, I mean we’d joke about it, but we’d have film tests for them, auditions, and some of these things were absolute clowns! No matter what you did with them they were total clowns! Others would just curl up and pretend they were dead, because they were sort of shy, stage fright … And by really studying them, even with gerbils or something, you’d soon sort out who was the bully, who was the shy one, who was the cute one. You could sort it out whether it was zebras or lions. You get lovely lions, you get horrible lions. You get really grotty elephants, and you get wonderful elephants that you can do what you like with, and they’re not going to hurt you.

The anthropomorphism evident in this statement highlights the sense of intimacy felt to be shared with animals, as well as the lack of subscription to binary constructions of nature and culture that are said to predominate in many Western contexts. White Batswana share the view with environmental anthropologists Descola and Pálsson (1996: 14) that ‘humans and animals are social

66  •  At Home in the Okavango

beings mutually engaged in each other’s world’. Community members discuss frequently the kinds of impacts people have on animal behaviour, particularly through the tourism industry. For example, they describe animals in the Moremi Game Reserve as habituated to people from the constant presence of tourists, whereas animals in areas less frequented by people are seen to be more skittish. Such human impacts are significant, as habituated animals are seen as potentially more dangerous, as they are not fearful of humans. Everyone has stories of physical attacks by various animals: many have survived elephant, lion and hippo charges, as well as bites and stings from snakes, scorpions and the many and varied insects. When asked if he had been attacked by a lion ever, Deon, who guides horseback safaris, replied laconically, ‘this year, more than twice. Well, you ride a hamburger through the delta, what do you expect?’ (Likening a horse to a hamburger is a humorous way of suggesting the horse is a desirable meal for a lion). Attacks form part of the relationship between people and animals and are not seen as random, but as part of predictable behaviours within ongoing relationships in a shared environment. For white Batswana, so long as a person has sufficient knowledge and behaves appropriately, the bush is a safe place. As Richard put it, ‘the bush is not out to get you. It’s only when you fuck up that the bush gets you’. Corroborating this sentiment, a white Motswana woman described sleeping more soundly in her tent in the bush than in her home in Maun where, as a woman living alone, she always has the possibility of a home invasion in the back of her mind. In her view, humans are potentially more transgressive and dangerous than animals, which are more predictable in their behaviour. This again suggests the greater identification and comfort of some white Batswana with the natural over the social environment.

Acquiring Bush Knowledge When questioned about how they learned about the environment, most white Batswana respond simply that they grew up in it. As children, brothers Richard and Tony used to take their father’s .22 rifle into the bush and go exploring. They frequently encountered elephant, buffalo and lion, and negotiated their way around these dangerous animals. They made traps, hunted small animals, caught reptiles and came to know the bush and its inhabitants from this kind of day-to-day, hands-on experience. Richard believes that learning on one’s own in this way is an incomparable means of acquiring knowledge. He described his bush skills as deriving from:

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Mainly osmosis, from my Dad, from enthusiasm. I’ve never had any training or anything like that. I love plants: I read about them, I look them up. I go out on my own, and I stare at things. I watch things happen, and I interpret in my own way, and I take pictures of stuff. It’s more passion than anything. It is knowledge developed through passion, and the luck of having a father who started us off on that passion.

Knowledge is also gained through participating in conversations about the bush. In bars in Maun there is constant discussion of plant species, animal behaviours, unusual sightings, vehicle breakdowns in remote areas, boat maintenance, Land Rovers versus Toyotas and other topics through which people learn about living in the bush. These conversations that are so engaging to insiders – and at times opaque to outsiders – serve to emplace the community. To this end, Cohen (1982: 6) describes the discursive construction of shared knowledge as fundamental to belonging, which ‘is constantly evoked by whatever means come to hand: the use of language, the shared knowledge of genealogy or ecology, joking, the solidarity of sect, the aesthetics of subsistence skills’. As is clear in Richard’s statement, the skills learned through handson experience in the bush tend to be valued above formal education. While secondary education is perceived as essential, tertiary training is not undertaken by all white Batswana. Vocational training tends to be the preferred form of further learning through hunting apprenticeships, business management certificates and similar. Despite some growth in the popularity of tertiary study among the younger generations, the undiversified tourism-based economy of the region has led to fairly limited specialisation among individuals, and community members require a broad set of practical skills and aptitudes, most particularly resourcefulness, to function successfully. There are strong parallels in this regard between white Batswana and the pre-1980s South African game rangers described by Carruthers (1995: 113), where ‘the desirable traits in a ranger were physical strength and activity, and reliability. Further recommendations were a knowledge of “natives”, bushcraft, horses, firearms and agriculture and, preferably, the absence of a wife. University degrees were unnecessary … even detrimental, because they led to specialization, whereas a ranger’s knowledge ought to be broad and diverse’. It is significant that much of this knowledge is finely tuned to the needs and specificities of the Okavango. A number of people commented to me that people who grew up and are very successful in Maun could not necessarily get jobs elsewhere in the world. Notwithstanding the many white Batswana who have migrated successfully, this fairly widespread belief stems not least from the fact that skills are derived from

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experience, rather than formal education. It is also attributable to the interdependence of the community and the support people give to each other through providing employment opportunities. Grace described this from her experience: I know a lot of people who’ve grown up here, who can’t cope [elsewhere]. I know a lot of people who have gone overseas for maybe three months and just come back saying: “Argh, I can’t deal with it!” It’s a very sheltered place this. It’s a happy little la la land, and I think people do sometimes struggle with that.

The Botswana state provides the infrastructure, the community provides the support and the natural environment provides the ready resources for people to make a living. In the absence of this framework some white Batswana, such as Grace, believe individuals cannot necessarily mobilise their skills to their best advantage. These kinds of comments were made less in the spirit of outlining an inadequacy, however, than in expressing the depth of white Batswana emplacement in the region. Yet, on a conceptual level, as a consequence of the limitations on individual mobility imposed by deep emplacement, these sentiments challenge the notion that it is inevitably a positive state of being. While people’s bush knowledge tends to be extensive, all describe limits to what they know. I asked Richard how often he comes across something unfamiliar: Quite often, hey. Between the birds, the plants, the insects, the fish, the snakes, the animals; there’s a lot of names to remember. I mean, I find a lot of things I know, but you just can’t remember the name of it, or you can’t remember the call, and so you end up having to reference again. So I reference a lot, I never go out there without my bird book, my tree book, my grass book and my insect book.

The dynamic environment and the constant opportunity for learning and seeing things never before witnessed are some of the things people love the most about working in the bush. No white Batswana would proclaim to know it all. In addition, no one I spoke with claimed to have the same level of intimate knowledge of the environment as the Bushmen who, despite some instances of loss of traditional knowledge as described above, continue to be greatly respected by white Batswana for their unparalleled bush knowledge. Richard described the differences in white Batswana versus Bushmen knowledge as follows:

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I’ve been to boarding school for seven years in South Africa. I’ve been travelling. The foundation of my life is here, but I’ve had too many distractions. Most of us have too many fragments in our own lives to be able to say that we’re just bush men. Someone like my father, yes. But he’s someone who still can’t compare to Bushman knowledge because they rely on the desert; it’s a very difficult place to exist. I don’t think anybody could ever really completely match their knowledge.

A number of people credit the Bushmen with teaching them much of what they know about the bush, particularly those like Deon who grew up in the Ghanzi region among the Naro.

Autochthony as Authority Inherent to the concept of autochthony are connotations of formidable knowledge and authentic, often spiritual connections to the land. In white Batswana’s deferral to the superior bush knowledge of the Bushmen, the construction of autochthony as authority is evident. White Batswana tend to greatly respect the unique relationships they see indigenous people as having with the land. One white Motswana in his mid thirties described to me in detail the book he was reading about Native American cultures. He claimed to have a very strong attachment to indigenous peoples around the world and spoke passionately about the injustice of the Bushmen being forcibly removed from the CKGR. He said of these cultures that he ‘loves them’, and that people should just ‘leave them alone to live their own lives’. The controversy surrounding Bushmen rights to live in the CKGR was raging at the time of my fieldwork, and white Batswana with whom I spoke unanimously sympathised with the Bushmen, who they believed should have the right to live and hunt in their traditional lands. In this sense, white Batswana recognition of the Bushmen is along the lines of both political and experiential autochthony. In theorising autochthony, Hilgers (2011: 36) describes how ‘there are different, overlapping levels that mean that a group is not simply autochthonous or non-autochthonous, but more or less autochthonous depending on the power relations and particular interests at work in a common space’. While white citizens acknowledge deeper emplacement among the Bushmen, whose unique claim to indigeneity they recognise, they also feel that their own experience of living and being in the region from childhood places them in a superior position of connection relative to the expatriates and tourists with whom they work. White Batswana believe experiential autochthony is necessary to truly know the natural

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environment. They value their way of knowing the environment, which emphasises the embodied above the cognitive. They believe their knowledge requires years of living and learning in the bush to attain. Richard explained his view of the matter: You’re viewing it from a different point, if you grew up here. You’re looking at it, you know, the bush to you is like a story. It’s full of all sorts of anecdotes, things you’ve seen, things you’ve experienced ... But your people who come here to become guides need to classify class, genus, and put everything into some kind of a structure so they can understand it, and they view it very differently like that … They would be able to tell you the thing’s Latin name, but not how to deal with it when it’s trying to eat you!

Interestingly, the hierarchy of knowledge described in Richard’s comments is the opposite of that described in many other contexts. Choy (2005: 13–14), for example, describes the embodied local knowledge of indigenous people in Indonesia as constructed by scientists and locals alike as inferior to scientific epistemologies (see also Raffles 2002, Latour 1986). In the Okavango locals are scathing of the many researchers from international universities who come to conduct projects on aspects of the environment, and yet are at times unable to drive a four-wheeldrive vehicle, navigate their way around or manage encounters with dangerous wildlife. Consequently, despite being ‘experts’, they depend heavily on local assistance to conduct their research (as, of course, do anthropologists). The authority attributed to an autochthonous relationship to place is frequently evident in interactions between white Batswana and resident expatriates. One night in a bar in Maun I witnessed an argument between Richard and his white South African friend, who has lived and worked in the delta for the past five years as a lodge manager. The argument was about a particular type of ant. The expatriate was telling a story about an incident with ants in a guest’s bedroom. Richard interjected saying that by his description it could not have been the type of ant the expatriate suggested, and that it was another subspecies. They then discussed the ants in question in great detail for at least ten minutes, with the argument becoming quite impassioned. Richard was adamant that he was right and stated firmly that he grew up with these ants, had been bitten by them countless times and thus knew all their idiosyncratic features. Through Richard’s marshalling of his autochthonous status to defend his position, he eventually convinced the expatriate that he had been mistaken. Palpable in this argument was a kind of arrogant assertion of autochthonous knowledge as superior, and the dismissal of the expatriate

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as uninformed outsider. Furthermore, within the tourism industry we see the explicit commodification of autochthony. Considerable status is attributed to those citizens brought up in the bush, and there is a widely promulgated belief that being raised in the Okavango is necessary to truly know it. Richard describes the fact that he was born and raised in the region as his ‘marketing angle’, giving him an advantage over expatriates. This is by no means a unique phenomenon, and Hilgers (2011: 34) describes how in much of Africa ‘autochthony plays the role of capital that can be invested, valued and profited from’.

Status Based on Bush Knowledge Evident in the notion of autochthony as authority is the fact that considerable status is accorded to those with high levels of bush knowledge. Among white Batswana, material resources are less a means of gaining status than depth of emplacement and expertise in the bush, which are far more valued social currencies. The more esoteric and skilled an activity, the more highly it is regarded. Those adept at the technically difficult fly fishing, for example, are admired more than those who have success with lures, while fishing with bait is considered outright cheating. Similarly, in-depth knowledge about obscure aspects of the environment, such as various types of grasses or insects – or the capacity to differentiate between the countless species of birds referred to as LBJs (little brown jobs) – is respected more than knowledge of mammals, which is readily obtained. Writing of the Australian context, Merlan (2007: 142) describes the common perception that indigenous and settler-descendant relationships to land ‘are polar opposites, and irreconcilable’. In the case of white Batswana, it is perhaps more interesting to look at the parallels. Krech (2005: 79) describes how: Indigenous people who have been living for generations in a particular environment develop intimate familiarity with it, render it culturally sensible or salient, and encode it linguistically. They possess a keen awareness of the natural world. They name plants and animals, reptiles, birds, mammals, fish, and insects used for food or that otherwise attract their attention. They also distinguish proper from improper thoughts about and behavior toward the natural world.

This description is readily applicable to white Batswana. The strong ecological foundations of their cultural values and practices, along with their

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respect for the Bushmen, raise intriguing questions. Can white Batswana’s intense relationship with the land be read as a consciously constructed parallel with the indigenous people of the world in order to promote senses of belonging? If so, within these kinds of beliefs and behaviours can we see a kind of reversal of colonial mimetic relationships described by scholars James Ferguson (2002), Homi Bhabha (1994), Michael Taussig (1993) and others as European-derived minorities emulate indigenous people’s lifestyles and beliefs in order to develop deeper senses of attachment to extra-European territories? While I do not think their connection to land is a consciously contrived response to these romantic discourses, it is certainly interesting to consider the auxiliary strengthening of positive sentiment that their corresponding relationships to land may provide. There are a number of parallels between white Batswana culture and the kinds of cultural values associated with a romanticised version of indigeneity. Their egalitarian values and anti-materialism are examples of this, as are the spiritual ties to land described above. Similarly, the significance of hunting within the group’s identity, cultural values and economy has further parallels with romanticised notions of indigeneity. Kuper (2003: 395) points out that the notion that ‘true citizenship is a matter of ties of blood and soil’ is a European belief, while Barnard (2006: 7) reminds us that indigeneity itself is a Western construct. Understood in this light, white Batswana’s relationship to the land is a predictable response within their cultural logic to enhance a sense of belonging to the Okavango.

Conclusion Belonging through the Bush White Batswana identity is underpinned by the core notion that they are bush people and, more specifically, that they are bush people of the Okavango. This is expressed, reiterated and performed through their constant articulation of their love of the wildlife and landscapes of the region. Their specialist knowledge of the environment serves to ground them in a parochial identity, while their experiential autochthony bestows a certain status upon them relative to the even more precariously positioned expatriates. While environmental determinist arguments have been widely critiqued by academics, their persistence in popular thought is widespread (Waitt, Lane and Head 2003: 529). White Batswana strongly feel they have been formed of the environment in which they were born and dwell. This accords with discourses of autochthony where people are said to be ‘anchored in their territory, from which they are said to originate’

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(Gausset, Kenrick and Gibb 2011: 138). Yet, rather than seeing the environment as the sole determinant of white Batswana culture, I suggest that the central role accorded to the bush can be read as an active means of enhancing belonging considering the inherently precarious position of this white community in a postcolonial African nation. For some – though not all – white citizens, valorisation of the bush occurs concomitant with an avoidance of building relationships with black Batswana. Yet, even for those white Batswana more integrated into the broader community, the natural environment operates as a relatively unproblematic means of enhancing belonging in light of the histories of colonialism and race-based privilege, which render senses of belonging vis-à-vis the majority population far more complex and fraught.

Chapter 2

Photographic Tourism, Emplacement and Belonging K In 2005, Richard was freelance guiding at one of the most exclusive safari lodges in the Okavango. During this time he hosted a group of extremely wealthy African Americans. The following excerpt is Richard’s perspective on a conversation he had with one of the African-American tourists during the course of their stay: We were having dinner, and I get asked by this young man of 24 years [of age], who’s black American – I call them black Americans, not African Americans – and he says to me, “Who do you think you are? Where do you come from?” And I say, “Um, I’m white, I’m born in Botswana, I don’t know. All I do know is that I was born in Botswana, and I live here, and I consider this my home”. And so he says, “Well, do you call yourself an African?” I said, “Yes, I do”. And anyway, I think he took that the wrong way, and changed his whole tune, turned it around, so what I said to him was, “I was born here, and I live here, and I grew up here, and I speak the language, and I know the people, and they all know me, and I have a home here ... You don’t speak a single African language, you don’t have a single African connection, you wouldn’t eat the same food – which is what these guys have already commented on back there – you won’t even eat the same food as what Africans here eat. Do you call yourself an African?” And he called himself “a victim of Americanisation”, which is where [another African-American tourist] turned around and said: “You’re a victim driving a Benz, homeboy!” And that was it hey. Since then every-

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thing became, that became the root of the joke. Ja, but none of them got the idea.

As exemplified in this incident, tourism is a rich site through which to explore questions of belonging. White citizens are not infrequently challenged regarding their identity position within discourses of political autochthony. In response, they assert strong identification as Batswana, marshalling experiential autochthony via their personal histories, experience and local expertise in presenting their claims to senses of belonging. In this chapter, I explore the ways in which work in the tourism industry serves to strengthen connections to the Okavango in some respects, while unsettling them in others. I begin by describing the central role of tourism in the national and regional economy, suggesting that a consequence of the industry’s dominance is a sense of community enabled by shared experiences, particularly in the predominant male vocation of guiding safaris. I then turn to the ambivalent relationships forged between white Batswana and tourists, in order to demonstrate how white Batswana’s localised identities are constructed against the patently foreign tourists. While belonging may be reinforced through identification against the tourist ‘other’, I go on to discuss how the inequitable distribution of opportunities along gender, race and class lines within the industry has divisive implications across the broader Ngamiland community. Such inequalities are exemplified through the fact that the tourism industry’s claims to conservation are undermined by the attendant alienation from the land and natural resources of the local rural poor. I conclude by discussing the ways in which white Batswana’s recognition of these issues has led to attempts to ensure their businesses give back through community development and conservation activities.

The Tourist Economy Tourism is the second largest driver of Botswana’s economy after diamonds (Mbaiwa 2005a: 157). It is of great significance on the national level, as it has helped diversify an economy historically dominated by the diamond and cattle industries. Tourism is a critical industry for procuring hard currencies and has strengthened financial systems considerably through fuelling the development of diverse support industries. Tourism generates large revenues for government through: corporate, land and personal taxation; concession fees; park entry fees; permits and licences for vehicles; and, while safari hunting was still operational, substantial licence and trophy fees (Mbaiwa, Darkoh and Nakizito 2003: 366). Botswana tourism

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is oriented around the nation’s vast wildlife areas, and from the late 1950s safari hunting was the primary tourism earner. The photographic industry was established in the early 1990s and, since the 2014 ban on all hunting outside of a small number of private game ranches, has become the primary form of tourism. Ninety per cent of tourists in Botswana visit the northern national parks and wildlife areas (Magole and Gojamang 2005: 87). The Okavango is the most exclusive of these areas, where the abundant wildlife and striking landscapes have attracted increasing numbers of international tourists over the past few decades. The Okavango region’s rapid development in the past twenty years has largely been the result of the growth of tourism (Mbaiwa 2005a: 169). The industry has led to improvements in basic infrastructure in Maun and other villages, from the building of roads to the provision of electricity and water. Goods and services have flourished, including an airport, numerous retail and wholesale outlets and banking and communication services. These are accessed by increasing numbers of community members using incomes derived from the industry. Sixty per cent of the formally employed people in the Okavango work in tourism directly, and many others work in support industries (Kgathi et al. 2006: 13). Indeed, there is little private sector employment in the Okavango region outside of tourism (Plantec Africa 2003: 198). This is significant, as much of the region’s formal sector employment in the 1960s and 70s involved emigration to South African mines, whereas today the tourism and service industries (followed closely by the various government agencies) employ the majority of waged workers. The benefits of working locally in terms of proximity to family and living and working in one’s home region are considerable, and salaries tend to be higher in the tourism sector than in other industries (Bock 1998: 34). In addition, Mbaiwa (2005a: 169–71) suggests that tourism has brought the benefit of cultural rejuvenation through the hosting of tourists in ‘traditional villages’, and the perpetuation of cultural skills and practices as seen in mokoro (dugout canoe) safaris, basket production and ‘positive attitudes towards wildlife conservation and tourism by local communities’ – at least among those directly benefiting from tourist revenue. For, while tourism has employed many, it must be remembered that the region is also home to great poverty, with much of the population unable to access the industry’s bounty. The government’s high-cost, low-impact policy has encouraged the development of elite lodge-based safaris, as well as luxury mobile tented safaris. There are approximately eighty lodges in the Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) throughout the Okavango, many of which are only accessibly by small plane for much of the year. Government legislation includes strict stipulations limiting the number of beds in each

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lodge – many have a maximum of sixteen guests at any one time – so to be profitable, lodges charge vast sums to tourists for the exclusive experience offered. The lodge in which Richard hosted the African-American clients cost U.S. $5,000 per night for a couple at the time, while less expensive lodges charged around U.S. $1,000 per person per night. Guided mobile safaris are centred in and around the Moremi Game Reserve, often including a few nights in surrounding concessions or other national parks in the region. Luxury camps are erected for a few days in each of the various sites, giving tourists the chance to visit several places during their safari. Mobile safaris are also expensive starting at around U.S. $300 per person per night. A backpacker market is growing, however, and providing options for more affordable (and more rustic) trips; although they still tend to be more expensive than similar packages in surrounding nations. Tourists also have the option of hiring vehicles, self-driving and staying in government camp sites. The self-drive market caters predominantly to South African nationals, with most international tourists feeling more comfortable employing the services of a guide. The roads in the wildlife areas are all untarred and, on account of annual flood movements, numerous of these become inundated with water during the peak tourist season, making local knowledge highly beneficial. In addition, the high density of wildlife makes independent travel potentially dangerous for the inexperienced. There is much resentment of ‘self-drives’ within the tourism industry, as they contribute little to the local economy, owing to the fact that they bring much of their food and fuel from South Africa and forfeit only the modest park entrance and camping fees. They are also widely believed to habitually disrespect wildlife – either wilfully or through ignorance – while negatively impacting the environment through leaving rubbish behind and damaging roads and habitat on account of poor fourwheel-driving skills.

Senses of Community through Tourism The dominance of tourism in the region’s economy renders it virtually inevitable that white Batswana work for at least part of their careers in the industry. The majority work directly in tourism as photographic tour guides, or (until recently) as professional hunters, lodge/mobile safari owners and managers, or in support roles such as lodge construction, supplies provision, maintenance and mechanics. Working in tourism is often described less as a vocational choice than as an inevitable outcome of being an Okavango-dwelling white Motswana. Richard explained

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this perception in relation to guiding, the primary vocation of white Motswana men: I was thinking the other day about the different types of guide you get. You get people who don’t come from here, who’ve always wanted to be a ranger, a guide or whatever, and they see it as a lifetime agenda. You have the kind of people who are highly successful, highly motivated business people, who’ve left the stock exchange, they want to go live in the bush, and they’ve got that motivation, that desire to learn. And then you’ve got the people who grew up here. They don’t have the same attitude towards it at all. I mean, I’m not going to go study before going on a trip. I mean you become a guide only by virtue of who you are, not because you desire to be that.

The sense of the inevitability of guiding as a vocation speaks to both the dominance of the industry in the region, and the immersion of tourism vocations within white Batswana identities, where being a guide is seen as ‘who you are’ rather than what you do. Another white Motswana in his twenties similarly describes tourism as ‘in the blood’. He says he has followed in his mother’s footsteps in that he grew up around tourism and cannot see any way out of it. While tips from clients can be substantial, and some sought-after individuals earn good daily rates, for the most part people do not earn large amounts of money guiding, but rather perceive the industry as a necessary means to allow them to remain living in the bush. Grace from Gaborone described the Okavango as ‘holding people hostage’, as they are prepared to endure the many challenges that work in tourism presents in order to live and work in the region. Richard confirms this sentiment, suggesting there are three types of work available in the bush: research, documentary film making or guiding. Of these he says guiding is by far the easiest and most accessible. Of his work as a horseback safari guide, Deon from Ghanzi said: ‘The reason I’m doing the horseback thing is just passion. I mean, I work a month there, it pays my bar bill for a week here. Seriously! I do it just for the love of it’. To make the money he needs to support his family he guides a number of hunting safaris in Kalahari game farms each year, which he likes much less. While many white Batswana enjoy aspects of their guiding work, many express frustration with their seeming inability to get out of the industry. There is little diversity in the regional economy, limiting career options. Moreover, as individuals have in most cases entered the industry straight after school, they do not necessarily possess the skills or qualifications to enter other forms of employment, should they be available. For other individuals, the pressure to guide safaris derives from a sense of obligation

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to family, friends, previous employers and repeat clients. Kinship networks constitute business alliances in a number of tourism operations, leading, on the one hand, to certain obligations, but, on the other, to the strengthening of family bonds. Richard and Tony’s uncle has a mobile safari company, but as he is not a citizen – despite having lived for more than twenty years in Botswana – his brother and nephew, Tony, are the company directors. While he specialises in small mobile safaris that he guides himself, when he has a large group, he employs Richard as a second guide. This kind of situation is common, and the extended family is a central institution in both the domestic and economic lives of white Batswana. A striking aspect of the industry is that even for non-kin operators, rather than developing competitive relationships as they vie for the same tourist dollars, white Batswana tend to work in ways that support each other’s businesses. Two families who own backpacker operations in Maun, for example, work very closely together despite being in direct competition. At the time of my 2006–07 fieldwork, they were marketing four-day safaris together, with one family organising the game drives, while the other arranged the boat trips. If one was unable to do a trip or accommodate a group, they referred the clients to the other. I witnessed many such symbiotic relationships, and there are parallels here with that which Dominy (1993: 323) describes in high country New Zealand farms as ‘a context where competitiveness is structurally inherent but socially and culturally contained’. There are exceptions to the rule, of course, and guides speak of some competitiveness in the bush. Richard and his uncle work very closely and always radio each other if they have an interesting animal sighting. When meeting guides they know from other companies in the bush, they are always quick to give the location of any predators. Yet, Richard and his uncle both complain of working with guides who keep this kind of information to themselves. They describe this as typical of inexperienced guides, who have too much ego involved and are yet to learn the value of working collaboratively. That so many community members are involved in the same work provides a strong sense of shared identity through the similar experiences, frustrations and pleasures of work in the industry. On the positive side, working in nature tourism is valued in that it is diverse, interesting and challenging, since people are working with two complex and unpredictable elements: people and the bush. The lifestyle can be quite decadent, as guides eat with guests and therefore have all their meals prepared, while having their other basic needs, such as laundry, attended to by cleaning staff while they are on safari. When they are not complaining

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about the tedium of the industry, guides wax lyrical about the lifestyle they lead, being paid to be on holiday with people year round. Challenges are, however, said to be many. Perhaps the most difficult aspect of working in tourism is being isolated from family and friends for extended periods. Mbaiwa’s (2004: 176) research determined that less than 10 per cent of safari industry workers in the Okavango work with their partners, rendering prolonged periods away from spouses and children inevitable. Another frustration frequently expressed is the regulated nature of tourism, and the increasing rules and legislation developing as the industry grows. Within the national parks, for example, night game drives and walking safaris are prohibited. Consequently, white Batswana guides try to avoid the parks and work in private concessions where possible, so they can exercise autonomy over activities. Their repeatedly professed love of freedom clashes with the increasingly regulated, organised, capitalist machine that is global tourism. While white Batswana pride themselves on being relaxed and nonmaterialistic, they still tend to work long hours. On safari they are responsible twenty-four-hours a day for their clients, and yet they try to ensure the day-to-day pace is relaxed. In this regard, the distinction between work and leisure becomes blurred. Playing the role of host often appears to be as much about fun as work, as it involves entertaining clients, telling stories and drinking alcohol. While tourists often see this as an idyllic lifestyle, those working in the industry find even these aspects stressful. The strain of being polite and courteous to clients, who can at times be difficult, and the energy required for constantly meeting and engaging with new people and different personalities begin to take their toll towards the end of the season. After too many consecutive safaris, guides describe ‘burn-out’: feeling great fatigue, losing patience with clients and staff and becoming disproportionately frustrated with the inevitable problems that arise. White Batswana also express considerable concern regarding the changes to their hometown brought about by the industry. Nostalgia for a simpler past is often expressed, as is a certain level of anxiety in dealing with the town’s rapid growth. Maun’s population has increased tenfold in the past forty years, with a population of 4,549 in 1964 expanding to 43,776 in 2001 (Plantec Africa 2003: 213). The huge influx of people has led to a sense of loss of community, as one white Motswana in his sixties explained: ‘When you’ve lived here for a long time, it’s your town. But then you go somewhere, and you sit there, and you realise that you are nothing. Nobody knows who you are; they don’t want to know who you are’. The loss of intimacy and perceived impact on community spirit are frequently cited as negative implications of the growth of Maun. Tourism

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is not solely responsible for such changes, of course, and modernisation in its various forms would have occurred in any case with state-sponsored and private development. To this end, Cedric commented that the major difference is that since the mid 1990s satellite television has been available in Maun: ‘Prior to that people had no choice but to go out and hang around with each other and make entertainment. Now it’s very easy to just go home, switch on the telly’. Further dissatisfaction about the tourism industry revolves around the privatisation and commodification of land, which has traditionally been valued as a communal resource. Tourism companies lease large concessions that they at times prohibit people from entering. Mbaiwa, Ngwenya and Kgathi (2008: 156) argue that even the BaTawana, ‘whose chiefs have held sway over all other groups in the delta (Tlou 1985), have been negatively impacted by state interventions and control of resource use’. A 25-year-old white Motswana similarly expressed a gripe in this regard: Pretty much all the concessions in the delta belong to outsiders, to foreigners. Citizens can’t afford these concessions, and we’ve basically lost our land. Well that’s the way I feel, because now if I want to go camping in the bush, I have to go and get a letter of permission from the concession holder. Normally they turn you down anyway. They don’t want you there. When you run into them, there’s huge confrontation. I’ve had guys swearing at me, threatening me. I mean you can’t believe the way some of these guys will speak to you! And the last person was someone who was from South Africa, and he has no right! He was shouting at me, telling me that I’m on his land. And it’s not his land.

From its earliest usage among Athenians, autochthony has been ‘associated with the spirit of resistance to foreign domination’ (Rosivach 1987: 303). This young man feels it is his role to resist such infiltration of outsiders in the Okavango, which clearly indicates his strong sense of entitlement. There is no sense at all that as a white citizen he should be denied any access or rights that are available to citizens of other ethnicities. This is an indication of the legitimacy in belonging felt by many white Batswana, and their construction of citizenship as a more significant identity marker than race. In addition, these kinds of sentiments suggest the tourism industry has had an ambiguous effect on belonging. While the development of the industry fuels the economy and provides a livelihood for white Batswana, it simultaneously leads to a sense of displacement through the threat of outsiders encroaching.

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Relationships with Tourists Tourist Reinforcement I now turn to the ways in which engagement with international tourists impacts white Batswana belonging. While tourism has rather ambiguous outcomes for white Batswana relationships vis-à-vis the local African community, as I discuss below, their sense of belonging tends to be fairly unequivocally strengthened by identities built through and against the tourist ‘other’. In the first instance, the simple fact that the Okavango is such a highly desired tourist destination lends to a sense of pride among citizens. Altman and Low’s (1992: 10) observation that place attachment plays a part in ‘fostering individual, group, and cultural self-esteem, selfworth and self-pride’ is certainly apparent in this regard. The Okavango is internationally renowned as a unique natural wonder and is featured frequently in nature documentaries. Richard’s pride in the Okavango’s unique environment is evident in that he used to take a copy of Alec Campbell’s (1980 [1968]) Guide to Botswana to boarding school in South Africa to show his friends the beauty of his home. Moreover, the highcost, low-impact policy, combined with its remoteness, means that the Okavango is one of the most expensive and exclusive destinations in southern Africa. The vast sums of money tourists pay add to the sense of it being a very special place. Of Indian youth, Favero (2003: 557) argues that rather than developing feelings of envy and self-denigration through contact with much wealthier tourists, interactions with admiring visitors foster nationalistic pride and patriotism among locals. This is certainly the case among white Batswana where living out that which tourists perceive as an exotic and idyllic lifestyle in this unique environment promulgates positive feelings. In addition, pleasure is derived from introducing the Okavango to appreciative guests. One white Motswana who conducts boat trips into the delta expressed this sentiment saying: ‘It’s nice to share such a beautiful place with people and watch how it affects their lives. It’s very rewarding in that sense’. The converse is that a lack of tourism interest in particular areas can devalue locals’ sense of their value. It is the Okavango and other wilderness areas that attract tourists, while Maun and other villages are thought to be unworthy of their attention. The majority of tourists only see Maun’s airport before taking a small plane directly to their luxury Okavango lodges. ‘Maun offers nothing to anybody’, Cedric said of his hometown. ‘What can you possibly gain out of spending a night in Maun? What is there to see or do in Maun?’ The absence of tourism, according to Cedric, provides evidence of the unattractiveness and dullness of the

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town. Unlike notoriously cynical Cedric, most white Batswana express great fondness for Maun and feel affectionate about its perceived ugliness and lack of facilities. Additionally, as they spend so much of their working lives with tourists in the bush, several people commented that it was a relief that Maun was still predominantly a local town and not overrun with tourists.

Relationships between Guides and Guests Beyond international tourists holding the region in high esteem, the actual relationships between guides and guests have a positive impact on belonging in a number of ways. In the discussion between Richard and the African-American tourist described above, it is evident that tourism encourages diverse people to explore ontological possibilities through and against each other. The African-American man pushes Richard to think about and articulate his personal and cultural identity, as they dispute that which constitutes an identity as African (see Gressier 2011). Richard’s sense of self is firmly entrenched in the place of his birth and residence in Botswana, and he does not closely identify with his European ancestry. Similarly, he sees the African-American tourist’s identity as tied to the place of his birth and life in America, rather than deriving from his African ancestry: ‘I call them black Americans, not African Americans’, he commented. While the African-American tourist associates an African identity with ethnicity and the designation of blackness, Richard emphasises the significance of living and being in Africa: ‘I was born here, and I live here, and I grew up here, and I speak the language, and I know the people, and they all know me, and I have a home here’. Beltus Bejanga, an activist for Cameroonians of Francophone ancestry living in Anglophone Cameroon, argues that ‘someone’s home should be where you are born, where you went to school, where you live, where you have all your property’ (cited in Geschiere and Nyamnjoh 2000: 437). In a related fashion, white Batswana believe that they have legitimacy in identifying as African on account of their Okavango-based experiential autochthony. That this was the first visit to Africa by the African-American tourist led to Richard’s scepticism about his identity as African: ‘You don’t speak a single African language, you don’t have a single African connection ... You won’t even eat the same food as what Africans here eat’. Richard marshalled the views of the Batswana camp staff on this front, where the latter had commented that on account of eating lekgoa (white person) food, and not the phaletshe (maize meal) that they see as so central to being African, there was no way the wealthy

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black tourists were African. In the tourist-host encounter, belonging is enhanced by the strong ties white Batswana have to the local community in contrast to tourists who, naturally, lack equivalent cultural and linguistic knowledge of the local people. The deep emplacement of white Batswana is further made evident through their embodied knowledge and corporeal ease in the bush, which tourists often lack. Living and working in the Okavango requires considerable corporeal and sensory skills, and white Batswana’s expertise becomes patently evident when contrasted with the bodies of tourists. On safari, guides explicitly articulate these differences, telling tourists how to control their bodies while game viewing, exhorting them to be calm and quiet, to whisper and to keep movement free flowing and minimal in order to avoid disturbing the wildlife. Tourists are frequently astounded by their guide’s skill at spotting animals. Richard described the difference in ways of seeing and corporeality between bush people and urban tourists in the following terms: As bush people we tend to look further all the time; our eyes are trained for distances. You find that people who come from cities spend all their time looking at computers, and a lot of what they are looking for is here, right next to them, instead of searching, looking out. And agility, definitely. Pavements don’t have branches lying across them. You don’t have to look down all the time when you’re walking on a pavement. Whereas here you’ve got to be listening, looking up and down, trying to walk quietly at the same time. Clients are always falling down.

There is a certain ‘cool’ that the white Batswana exhibit in their embodied ease in the bush. This contrasts strongly with tourists, who in many cases tend to look rather ‘uncool’; this is both in the literal sense of their lack of conditioning to the heat and their tendency to sunburn, and in the metaphoric sense of being unused to the environment, often dressed in strange arrangements of ‘safari’ clothing purchased for the trip, and thus in many instances appearing to be clumsy, unfashionable and out of place. Despite the diversity within the category of ‘tourist’, there are certain patterns of behaviour that locals observe and often deride, which serve to emphasise their own localness against tourist awkwardness. There is a saying that tourists in the Okavango are ‘newlywed or nearly dead’, as the high cost means the trip tends to either be taken as a once-in-a-lifetime experience (i.e., honeymoon), or that clients are in the latter part of their lives and have amassed the required financial resources. The fact that many clients are elderly means they are often not physically confident

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and tend to be awkward in the unfamiliar bush environment. In white Batswana perceptions of their clients there is much common ground with the patterns of tourist behaviour described by the Malagasy and recorded by anthropologist Andrew Walsh (2005: 662) in the Ankarana Reserve in Madagascar. These include: the constant asking of questions; incompetence in the bush; the tendency to look exhausted due to an inability to cope with the heat; a distrust of local people, particularly in terms of their material goods; and the practice of bringing an excess of luggage. All these qualities of tourists are subject to white Batswana mockery, and serve an important function in the affirmation of their own emplacement. Such mockery and ridiculing of visitors by locals is not uncommon in global tourism, where the tourist ‘is relatively ignorant of local conditions, and thus often appears incompetent, ridiculous, gullible, and eminently exploitable’ (Van den Berghe and Keyes 1984: 347). White Batswana cope with the strain of working with tourists through humour. One of the most popular bar/restaurants in town has a sign that in reference to the seasonal restrictions on trophy hunting reads: ‘It’s tourist season, so why can’t we shoot them?’ In the same vein, and in reference to the local drinking culture, Maun is commonly referred to as ‘a drinking town with a safari problem’. On safari, ingenuous clients are mocked by being fed false information. I heard one guide telling some clients that male zebras are black with white stripes, while females are white with black stripes. The clients started excitedly saying, ‘the one on the left, that’s a male!’ and so on. Being out of their comfort zone, tourists do seem at times to suspend their own logic, while deferring disproportionately to their guide’s knowledge. On another safari a 45-year-old American client asked her guide: ‘What is that white thing in the sky?’ to which he responded drolly: ‘An aeroplane. They have them in your country, too’. Another day while we were watching lions, she asked him: ‘Are they here every day?’ Laughing in disbelief, he said: ‘Ja, they come every day at three’. She was unaware of the far-ranging nature of their territories and the unpredictability of their movements, but to the guide this seemed confounding ignorance. As seen in these kinds of situations, the negotiation of power is a dominant theme in relationships between guides and guests. In the tourism literature, much has been written about the powerlessness of locals in the tourism nexus (Moore 2004: 82; Stronza 2001: 272). Yet, the inverse seems to be more often the case with white Batswana and their clients. Tourists must submit to the instructions and decisions of their guides, and are highly dependent on them for their safety and, to a considerable extent, their enjoyment. While the power inequity is negated somewhat by the fact that the clients tend to be much wealthier and are paying large sums for the service rendered, the potential danger on safari makes it

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necessary for the guide to be quite prescriptive about tourists’ movements. There is a kind of inherent helplessness in being a tourist in the bush that renders people almost childlike. The guide often reminds their clients to drink more water in the heat, or to reapply sunscreen, while informing them where and when they can go to the toilet. To be in a position of power over people who in their own lives are extremely successful adds to a sense of self-worth in guides. While holding this power enhances confidence in most, some find it very difficult asserting their authority, particularly in their early years of guiding. One young guide came to a Maun bar one evening sporting a new beard, and his friends teased him saying he had grown it to look older, and hence more experienced. Another young Motswana guide described the challenges he has faced engaging with tourists: Well I found first of all that it’s very hard for me to get their trust, because they see me as a young person. They’ll very often ask me if I’m their guide, because they think I’m too young to be their guide. And it takes a while on safari to get their trust, and you’ve got to be so careful that you don’t screw that up.

Power tussles are similarly described by female guides, regardless of their age, where a process of winning clients’ trust invariably ensues; trust that can very quickly be lost if something goes wrong. Along with these kinds of challenges and tensions in host-tourist relationships are many positive connections built in the course of safaris. Ongoing friendships between clients and tourists occur quite frequently. The highest accolade in the industry is to have clients book subsequent safaris. The affection clients hold for their favourite guides is evident in the lavish tips and gifts they at times bestow upon them, such as cameras and other goods not readily available in Maun. The admiration of clients for their guides is to an extent determined by the role they play in introducing tourists to the many awe-inspiring wonders of the Okavango. Indeed, it is not uncommon for tourists to become quite enamoured with their guides and the lifestyles they lead. Ecofeminist Maria Mies (1993: 141) suggests that tourism and back-to-nature movements are about seeking belonging and a primal sense of home, which are left unfulfilled by urban living. By extension, guides living this idealised nature-based lifestyle can be seen as living more authentic, rewarding lives than the urban tourists. This admiration can have interesting implications. In his book addressing aspiring tour guides, professional guide Garth Thompson (2001: 136) writes of tourists:

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They begin to enjoy the feeling of space, naturalness, wilderness, lack of pollution, clear skies, warmth, vast herds of beautifully formed animals, refreshing dawn mornings, billowing clouds, electrical storms, sunsets, bird song, the wind, rain and sun on their urban skins. With an awakening of their senses can come an admiration for you, the one who they perceive as having opened all this up to them. The perception that you are in love with nature, so aware, natural, unmaterialistic, uncluttered and uncomplicated also enhances their respect. Some people have never felt the way they do in Africa; free, wild and sensual.

The phenomenon of tourists sexually desiring their guides is jokingly referred to as ‘khaki fever’. Just prior to departing for fieldwork, in a column in the travel section of the Weekend Australian (2006: 7) newspaper, I chanced upon a description of the owner of an Okavango safari company. The tourist who recommended him to the newspaper described him as ‘a passionate environmentalist and photographer who looks and behaves like a naughty and exuberant rock star’. These virtual rock stars, often young, fit and tanned, not uncommonly become the objects of tourists’ passions. While my interlocutors claim that the demographic of ‘newly-weds and nearly deads’ limits the frequency of ‘khaki-fever’ incidents, the admiration for guides held by tourists more broadly certainly adds to the guides’ self-esteem and enjoyment of their working lives. Moreover, many a marriage in the community traces its origins to a clear night under starlit skies on safari in the delta.

Performativity and the Guide Many guides possess a keen awareness of the perceptions tourists have of them and their lifestyle. Performativity is inherent in the role of guiding, which in part is built around tourist expectations. Richard’s uncle is certainly aware of this and becomes frustrated by younger guides who do not take the image seriously: You know the Kenyan guys actually imparted a knowledge and a style, and that is what I draw on all the time. You know [Joe Guide] is a nice guy, but he has never not got a beer in his hand! Shave! You know, you must show the client that you have standards, because they look up to you. It’s an image! Deal with it! Wear khakis! That’s what they come here for and expect. So do it! That’s what people want. These guys in their dirty denims and unshaven …

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Among older guides like Richard’s uncle there is much value placed on the ‘old school guide’ derived from the East African model of high-class gentlemen conducting safaris. It is not actually the lifestyle the guide described leads that offends Richard’s uncle – he is a big drinker himself – it is the fact that he does not perform the role of guide that goes with the tourist’s image of the African safari and its fearless leader. However, there is a fine line drawn within performing the guide role, and those who try too hard to impress tourists are mocked by other guides. While most wear the standard khaki bush uniform of pants or shorts and collared shirt, there is mockery of those who take the safari style to the extreme. Richard dismissively described one expatriate guide in this manner: He was a real Tarzan with a leather waistcoat, and he had a knife on his belt about this big [spreads his arms wide]. He had elephant hair bracelets up and down his arms, and his shorts were almost hotpants they were so tight. Shit he loved his role! The whole thing was just image, you know. The whole sort of dressed in leather, knives, bangles, the real ‘Out of Africa’ look. It’s just, I mean any of us can do that, but it’s just so fucking embarrassing!

Richard says that the most valuable lesson he has learnt about guiding is not to concern himself overly with tourist expectations, and just to be himself. This ties in with his comments quoted earlier where he suggests white citizens are born into the role of guiding and at times grudgingly take on the work due to lack of other options. Many expatriates, by contrast, come to the region specifically for the purpose of guiding, and thus may be more inclined to relish the performance of the intrepid guide. Central to performing the role of guide is the practice of storytelling. In the discussions I had with tourists, and in the visitors books I perused, one of the most commonly mentioned pleasures of the safari experience is sitting around the fire in the evening listening to the guide’s stories. One tourist commented that anyone can attain facts about the wildlife from guidebooks and documentaries, but it is the guide’s stories that bring the bush to life and make having a guide (rather than self-driving) worthwhile. In addition to enhancing tourist enjoyment on safari, storytelling plays a critical role for white Batswana in constructing and performing authenticity within their connections to place. Through their stories, guides emphasise their long history in the area, their emplaced knowledge and emotional bonds to the land, which together affirm a sense of belonging. Interestingly, some tourists also engage in this practice, claiming a

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kind of authority over other tourists through telling stories of previous visits to the Okavango or other African wilderness areas.

Performing the ‘Neo-primitive’ in Tourist Encounters Emerging in white Batswana stories, and in their interactions with tourists more broadly, is the performance of a kind of ingenuous, back-tonature persona. This resembles what Pocius (2000 [1991]: 22) refers to in Newfoundland as ‘neo-primitive white culture’, owing to its somewhat romanticised emphasis on the bush and activities therein, such as hunting and fishing (see also Minnegal et al. 2003: 64). Let me begin by pointing out that even if individuals have never left Botswana – although most have – the kinds of experiences they have render them unquestionable cosmopolitans. Despite its physical remoteness and small town demographics, Maun is constituted by great diversity and is inextricably linked with the international community through the tourism industry. Particularly in the course of lodge-based safaris, guides enjoy a very comfortable lifestyle, eating sumptuous meals and drinking fine wines with some of the world’s most rich and famous people. During the course of my fieldwork, members of the British royal family, film stars, business entrepreneurs, politicians and other renowned international public figures holidayed in the Okavango. They are attracted not only to the beauty of the region, but to the exclusive and private luxury camps, which are too remote and well controlled for even the most determined paparazzi to access. The school principal of Matshwane describes how Maun children are exposed to the broadest range of experiences from a young age, from traditional African cultural ways to those of the wealthiest international tourists. Even within the resident community there is huge diversity, as the principal explained: ‘You’ll sit around the table, and you’ll have eight nationalities, fifteen languages, age gap of fifty years between the oldest and the youngest, and you would never find that elsewhere’. While this may be somewhat exaggerated, diversity is certainly central to Maun social life. Somewhat paradoxically, despite the significance of global flows of people and capital into the Okavango, white Batswana tend to downplay their global ties and emphasise their localness. This is consistent with a parallel global paradigm where place-based identities are accorded with increasing salience in an ever-globalising world (Escobar 2001). For white Batswana, the local and global are mutually constitutive, as while they overtly perform localness, it is precisely their cosmopolitanism that allows them to comprehend the kinds of expectations and desires tourists

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possess (cf. Salazar 2006). In this regard, their bush-based identities are mobilised as a commodity within the tourism industry. In performing the ‘neo-primitive’, guides emphasise their disdain for cities and the consumerist trappings of urban life. In his book for aspiring guides, Thompson (2001:149–50) explicitly directs young guides to perpetuate this image: Try not to discuss your material possessions. Your clients have placed you on a pedestal as someone totally dedicated to wildlife and nature, enjoying the simple things in life, unmaterialistic, uncluttered and unaffected by the assets that symbolise class, wealth, and position.

The anti-materialist values and relatively egalitarian nature of white Batswana culture lend easily to fulfilling these kinds of tourist expectations. When in the bush the focus is on the wildlife, and the bulk of conversations between guides and tourists revolve around these experiences. As Richard commented, ‘if you live in the bush, your interests are in plants, animals, insects, fish, snakes; not music, books, movies, actors, actresses, sport’. He says he finds it ‘disorienting’ trying to keep up with conversations about these ‘first-world’ preoccupations. Yet, Richard and other white Batswana are by no means naive to the economics underpinning the industry and, in this sense, their non-materialist position can certainly be read as at least partially performative. Also central to the ‘neo-primitive’ persona is the role of guides as mediators between tourists and the landscape. Tourists are often greatly impressed by their guide’s capacity in this respect. Richard had taken a British journalist on a ten-day walking safari some years previously, and he showed me the Sunday Times article that was the result of this trip. The article represents Richard as a sort of anachronistic bush guru: ‘[Richard] knew about survival. A life spent roaming Botswana’s bushveld, living off the land, he was Africa’s answer to Huckleberry Finn’ (Gray 1997). Richard is portrayed as a self-sufficient, resourceful bush-master, reading the signs of life mapped on the terrain. He is described sorting through hyena scat to determine what they have been eating, rescuing stricken animals from the floodwaters, tracking animals from their spoor and smelling distant floodwaters in the air. These kinds of constructions of guides are imbricated within the frontier trope dominant, and often explicit, in tourism marketing: ‘Johan Calitz Hunting Safaris has the exclusive rights to what is undoubtedly some of Africa’s last wild frontiers’ (Johan Calitz 2006; see also Echtner and Prasad 2003 on conventions of third-world tourism marketing). Professional hunters, particularly, reconstruct frontier-style experiences on safari through the exaggeration of risk and the simulation of danger.

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Professional hunter Tony described tourists’ enthusiasm for this kind of adventure: I do a lot of fly camping where we just pack enough fuel, water and everything onto a vehicle, and where we end up that night is where we sleep … And clients love that. There’s something about just being able to go out and sleep under the stars in your bedroll. Of course you have to tell them all the stories, and let them sleep with their rifle and everything else [laughs]. They love it, absolutely love it.

Through constructing primal, dangerous Africa for clients, white Batswana not only cement links with their community’s history, but also engage in a kind of reinforcement of their skills and bravery through their mastery of this potentially dangerous environment. In sum, through their role as guides and in situating tourists as a key ‘other’ within processes of identity construction, white Batswana are able to emphasise their localness. Should they construct identity predominantly against the BaTawana, Wayeyi or Bushmen as key ‘others’, the positive sense of authenticity in localness would not necessarily be so assuring.

Gender and Tourism While senses of belonging are reinforced by engagement with tourists, the industry has also led to increased tensions within the local community, fuelling the growth of identity politics in terms of race, class and gender. Regarding the latter, in diverse contexts throughout the world, anthropologists have reported unequal benefits in the tourism industry along gender lines (Teo and Leong 2006: 124; Stronza 2001: 267). The Okavango is no exception, and research demonstrates that men have been more involved and attained greater benefits from tourism development in Botswana (Mbaiwa 2005a: 169). This stems in part from traditional gender roles and relationships existing prior to the industry’s establishment. According to Mazonde (1998: 90), in Batswana society, historically, women were seen as inferior and at times treated on par with children: They could not participate in kgotla discussions. Wives were expected to be so submissive to their husbands, they were not allowed to question them, even when the latter were clearly wrong. There was no social equality between males and females. And yet women were respected as the custo-

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dians of customs and belief systems. Gender discrimination has been complex and subtle, intricately intertwined with culture and tradition.

Considerable progress has been achieved in improving the status of women in Botswana, however, with the latest State of the Nation Address (GoB 2013: point 119) citing the Grant Thornton survey’s finding that 39 per cent of senior management positions in Botswana are held by women, making it equal second in this regard in the world. In the context of my research, the gendering of tourism engagement raises the question as to whether white Batswana women are alienated from the belonging obtained by men through their work in tourism. The Okavango is often described as one of the last frontiers on account of its wildlife-rich expanses and small population. The frontier is predominantly represented as a masculine space populated by ‘heroic white male identities: the frontiersman, the cowboy, the Romantic poet, the explorer, the engineer, the colonizer, the anthropologist, the pioneer settler, and so on’ (Ross 1994: 220). White Batswana masculinities bear some resemblance to stereotypical notions of the frontiersman in that value is placed on physical strength, toughness, stoicism, ability to drink whisky, shoot rifles and so forth. These attributes are emphasised and performed particularly within men’s role as guides in the tourism industry. Yet, male identities are more complex than the frontier stereotype suggests, and there are many other values that are just as prominent. There are parallels among white Batswana and South African men, who Morrell (2001: 18) describes as also possessing an ‘ideal of manhood which is responsible, respectful and wise’. I asked a number of my interlocutors about mentors they have in the community, and the men that were respected tended to be those who were seen as kind, calm and non-assuming. Those who were highly competent in the bush, but modest about their knowledge, were admired the most. Men also at times occupy roles and undertake tasks normatively associated with the feminine, such as child-rearing. The trans-Okavango guide Luke, for example, is divorced and has a 15-year-old son, who chooses to live with him and attend secondary school in Maun. Luke’s ex-wife lives more than a thousand kilometres away, and consequently Luke is the primary caregiver, an undertaking for which he is respected. White Batswana women similarly do not conform to traditional notions of femininity. While the kind of lifestyles and cultural values I have described may be assumed to solely describe archetypal hardened masculinities, in many cases women in Maun equally personify these frontier characteristics. Luke grew up in Ghanzi, roughly five hundred kilometres from Maun in the rural west of Botswana, but has lived his adult life in the Okavango. He tells stories of his mother going out

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alone to hunt wildebeest for meat for the family, which she would load into her bakkie (utility vehicle) single-handedly. He describes the region as a place where ‘men are men, and women are men, too!’ In other words, in response to the requirements of life in the African bush, women often take on roles traditionally ascribed to men (cf. Adler 1996: 85). Frontier women are often reputed as possessing strength of character, and this was certainly the case in colonial Kenya where women such as Karen Blixen and Beryl Markham outstripped the infamy of their male counterparts (Steinhart 2006: 102–9). In New Zealand, Dominy (2001: 81) writes of the status given to the pioneering women for their ability to cope despite the extreme difficulties. She suggests that this type of status replaces that of ‘elegance’ in regard to perceptions of women as homemakers in frontier communities. Many white Batswana women hold positions of power and respect in the Okavango today, and most consider themselves to have equal opportunities in work and leisure. The position of white women is made possible by the race/class nexus, where white women are in a position of social privilege, and their families can usually afford to hire Batswana women to perform domestic tasks. On account of minimal maternity leave allowances, mothers tend to return to work very quickly after childbirth and employ nannies to help with childcare. A number of white Batswana women own and run small businesses, while several others work in upper management roles within tourism operations. Safari guiding, the primary vocation of white Batswana men, however, has always been a predominantly male pursuit. A number of white Batswana women do have professional guide’s licences, but few pursue guiding on a long-term basis. Charlotte, the white Motswana woman born and raised in northern Botswana, is in her mid thirties. After finishing school, she attained her guide’s licence while working in administration for a safari company. She guided safaris in the Okavango for a year, before moving to another company where she drove supply vehicles into various Okavango lodges. Subsequently she took on the role of Operations Manager at one of the delta’s most elite lodges, before starting a business venture through buying shares into another lodge. While Charlotte has been engaged in a number of roles traditionally thought of as masculine, the fact that the majority of her career has been in administration and management, with only a brief spell guiding, speaks to the persistence of the gendering of roles in the industry. Of the Afrikaners in the neighbouring Ghanzi district in the seventies, Russell and Russell (1979: 55) suggest that although it ostensibly appears that men and women are engaged in similar tasks – as women drive trucks, handle guns and so forth – there is in fact a fairly rigid

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gender division of labour. The same is true of the Okavango. There are several reasons for this, in guiding particularly. Firstly, white Batswana women with whom I spoke claimed to prefer management roles. Secondly, in families with young children, mothers are with few exceptions the primary care givers, and it is much easier for women to work in town in order to access schools and other services. Thirdly, the belief in the need for fit, strong male bodies in the wilderness persists (cf. Draper 1998: 824). This is evident among clients particularly, and the tourists I interviewed consistently described feeling safer having men guiding them among dangerous game. Indeed, the three expatriate women I came to know, who were working as guides at the time of my research, expressed frustration with the constant challenges to their abilities levelled by clients at the beginning of safaris. Other white Batswana, both male and female, believe there is validity in arguments in favour of male guides, in that on a walking safari, for example, if a dangerous animal was encountered and a guide needed to push his clients up a tree into safety, considerable physical strength would be necessary. There is also a fair amount of heavy lifting and physical work, they argue, in dealing with tents, equipment, changing four-wheel-drive tyres and so forth. Thus, on account of the need for physical strength on safari, men are widely perceived as better suited to guiding work. As a consequence of these fairly pervasive beliefs, the majority of men work for extended periods in the bush, while women remain in Maun running businesses. To this end, women are said to ‘keep the town running’, through managing offices, looking after families and keeping households together. The entrepreneurial activities of women and their prominence in Maun’s business sector is seen, on the one hand, as demonstrative of women’s capability and respected position in the community. Women, on the other hand, often describe themselves as ‘safari widows’, with partners off ‘having a joll (party)’ in the bush. Women with young children, particularly, speak of the hardships of their partners being out on safari for weeks at a time, only to return home exhausted and wanting to ‘blow off steam’ and spend time with their friends, which inevitably involves drinking. This is the cause of considerable tension in many families. Beyond these practical concerns for women, within white Batswana culture where the bush is valued so highly, the association of men with the bush and women with town serves to symbolically valorise the position of men over women. As elsewhere, gender roles, relationships and dynamics of power are individually variable and complex in the Okavango. While women have played prominent roles in many instances in the tourism industry, a division of labour persists. The iconic and at times romanticised role

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of guiding continues to be very much male dominated. This alienates women from equal opportunities to spend time in the bush, which is constructed as so very central to the group’s emplacement and sense of belonging. Yet, women in many cases see their vocations as determined primarily by their personal choices and, consequently, do not feel that they are disempowered by the prevailing dynamics.

Race and Class in the Tourism Industry Much greater tension persists within the tourism industry along racial lines, and particularly in relation to the convergence of race and class. Okavango tourism has largely been developed by foreign and expatriate skills and capital. The North West District Council (NWDC) states the lack of involvement of citizens has been the result of numerous factors, including lack of start-up capital, land access issues and limited experience and training opportunities (Mbaiwa 2005a: 163). To this day, the unskilled and poorly paid roles of cleaners, drivers, cooks and security guards are held by Batswana, while expatriates enjoy the higher paid, skilled positions of management roles, as well as working as guides, pilots, accountants and so forth. While expatriate workers occupy only 4 per cent of the country’s hotel and tourism jobs, their vast over-representation in upper management evidences the presence of structural inequalities in the industry (Mbaiwa 2004: 174). This is made clear through the fact that disparities in wages for locals and expatriates persist, even when they are undertaking the same roles (Mbaiwa 2003: 454). The ongoing presence of expatriate staff is often justified by, and attributed to, tourist desires, as described by a 25-year-old coloured Motswana woman: The unfortunate truth is that it’s a white industry. Tourists love to see white people running things. If there are black managers running something, they still want to know that there’s a white person who is overseeing the Africans. You have to have a white face in a camp, and that’s the truth.

While this is a commonly stated belief in the Okavango, it was belied by my experience at one high-cost lodge in the delta. I spoke with tourists from four nationalities; all of whom professed to be comfortable with and impressed by the entirely black-Batswana run camp. Skilled expatriate contributions were certainly essential in the early days of tourism, and while the process of up-skilling can take time, the proportion of expatriates in upper-level positions is the cause of increasing resentment among Batswana. A point of comparison is that of the civil service, which was

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expatriate-dominated in the years following Independence in 1966 owing to low education rates at the time among Batswana. Yet, most positions were localised by the late 1970s (Gulbrandsen 2012: 131). Structural inequities are seen as one of the principal drivers of growing interracial tensions in the Okavango. MoNgwaketse lodge manager Tshepo expressed this widespread sentiment: Some of the white expats that work up there should be camp hands with the qualifications they have. The thing is, it becomes aggravating when you see a new white couple come in, and you’re like, “you cannot be serious!” And you think to yourself, “is it because they’re white?” I’ve worked with people in the delta who had no clue about what they were doing. I think, “why am I sitting here as a Motswana, teaching this person their job?”

I probed Tshepo further, asking if she thought it would be preferable to phase out expatriate labour altogether, to which she adamantly replied: ‘No, no, no. Never. I think actually that we are going to need expats for a long time. Good expats … I love working with white people. I just want there to be that proper screening process. Don’t just let any crap in!’ This situation raises the question as to the impact of such sentiments on white Batswana. To date, resentment tends to be targeted at the large numbers of expatriate whites more than the small number of white citizens. The frustration expressed by Tshepo was in reference to a South African Afrikaner couple, who had a poor grasp of English and little experience in the industry. Batswana distinguish between various white peoples, and South African Afrikaners, who they refer to as Maburu, are among the least well-liked. White Batswana are differentiated from Maburu and, as citizens, are also exempted from the common accusation of white expatriates taking profits out of the country. The Paramount Chief of the BaTawana at the time of my primary fieldwork, Kgosi Tawana, was outspoken in his dislike of whites in the Okavango. This was not all whites, however, and he is close friends with Richard and a number of other white citizens, who he has known all his life. He talks openly to them about his frustrations concerning ongoing white dominance in the tourism industry. The resentment of white privilege in the industry tends, therefore, to be directed specifically towards expatriates and foreign company owners, who are seen as having little ongoing commitment to the nation. In addition, the widely held belief that white expatriates bring racist attitudes to Botswana and treat people disrespectfully is a significant aspect of the resentment of citizens towards expatriates in management. Mbaiwa (2005b: 173) conducted research among Okavango community

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members, asking respondents whether they believed racism existed in the tourism industry, and concluded that ‘[l]ocal people and politicians in the region accused tour operators from South Africa and Zimbabwe of practicing racism’. While certainly some individual white Batswana may be seen as racist, through specifying these particular white nationals as exhibiting such behaviours the subordination of race to citizenship status is evident in Batswana attitudes.

Localisation Policy Negative sentiments towards expatriates profiting inequitably has fuelled calls for localisation across all industries in Botswana, and particularly tourism. While formerly Botswana’s policy objective was to target foreign capital and skills, there has been a shift towards enabling citizens to participate at all levels through state programmes of education, loan schemes and legislation forbidding foreigners to fill positions for which citizens hold appropriate qualifications. In recent years, the government has reserved a certain number of licences exclusively for citizens in operating mobile safaris, guest houses, camps and caravan parks, and guiding mokoro safaris. ‘As at end of April 2013, there were 847 licensed tourism enterprises, out of which 473 are wholly owned by citizens, an increase of 67 from the previous year, while 144 are joint ventures and 220 are non-citizen owned’ (GoB 2013: point 44). While these figures may sound impressive, they do not take into account the size of the companies, and the large scale operations are, with few exceptions, joint or foreign owned. An adjunct to this policy is the stringent immigration policies that control expatriate permits and citizenship applications. White Batswana express mixed views about the policy, with some feeling that the push for localisation is premature. Grace, on the other hand, having studied human resource management, feels strongly about the issue and is frustrated by the lack of change: I think it’s an industry that could do with a big shake up: in the way lodges are run; the way their skill development is looked at; the way the community work is looked at. Looking into the future, what can [tourist operators] really, really honestly do to benefit the community? Not on paper, not so that it looks good on the budget, not so that the tent lady is able to sell her baskets, but for real changes to occur, for real improvement to happen, for all those benefits that people talk about with tourism being able to up-skill the local community.

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There are many challenges inherent within the goal of localisation. The high-cost, low-volume policy has inhibited local participation, as vast capital input and expertise are required to provide the standard of services necessary to justify the high prices charged to consumers (Mbaiwa 2005a: 168). At the turn of the century, 36 per cent of the Okavango’s population was illiterate and had never attended school, and thus in many instances could not ‘meaningfully participate in development’ (Plantec Africa 2003: 195). Consequently, those who stand to gain from localisation policy and government development initiatives are those, such as white Batswana, who possess the appropriate education and business skills. Thus while at first glance the anti-expatriate sentiment in the tourism industry might be presumed to negatively impact white Batswana through extension to a generalised anti-white sentiment, localisation in fact provides them with extraordinary benefits. Richard enthuses about the government’s localisation initiatives, saying he feels ‘there is every type of opportunity you can imagine’. These opportunities are embraced in many ways, and a small number of white Batswana families have obtained leases for tourist concessions. Leases are for varying but limited periods, and I spoke to one white Motswana concessionaire whose lease was due to terminate the following year. I asked if he thought it would be renewed, to which he responded: ‘I’m a citizen, I’m a tribesman, you know. I went to the kgotla and got whipped when Letsholathebe was made Chief. So they consider me as one of them. People do very much so. For me it’s ideal. There’s a big push for citizen empowerment in Botswana’. For this white Motswana, as a consequence of his engagement with the kgotla and other Tswana institutions (see Chapter Five), citizenship is seen as more significant to his business opportunities than his whiteness, which he strongly believes does not disadvantage him within localisation policies. Theorists of African autochthony Ceuppens and Geschiere (2005: 387) suggest that claims to autochthonous status are often as much about accessing the global (i.e., wealth and power) as defining the local. In the context of tourism, an autochthonous subject position guarantees citizenship, which in turn provides direct material benefits for those with the requisite knowledge and skills to exploit such a status.

Conservation through Tourism Recognition among some white Batswana of their privileged position in relation to opportunities in the tourism industry contributes to a sense of obligation to give back to the community and region. One of the

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primary means through which they endeavour to do so is through efforts to protect the local environment. White Batswana are aware that within neoliberal global economic structures, constructing the bush as a highvalue commodity safeguards its survival, and in this way they see tourism as positive for conservation. Vast sums of foreign currency ensure wildlife areas remain viable, with large tracts of land kept largely undeveloped in order to provide habitat for wildlife. Conservation is not a term of which white Batswana are fond, however. They see notions of ‘conservation’ as Western impositions, and while passionate about the environment, they do not identify as conservationists, per se. While they may not like the term, white Batswana, with few exceptions, support an ethic of conservation or sustainable usage, believing that humans belong in nature as an active part of it. They reject the Western tendency towards an epistemological dichotomisation of nature and culture and the related belief in non-utility that characterises the preservation concept (Carruthers 1995: 5). My interlocutors articulated repeatedly the belief that people are an integral part of natural ecosystems and should live sustainably in the bush, rather than separate from it. Concomitant with such a belief, they are actively involved in efforts to protect the environment. A number of Okavango tourism operations in which white Batswana have been involved have funded specific conservation projects. The region’s largest company has worked to reintroduce rhinoceros into the delta, which had been poached out of local existence. More modest contributions are offered on a daily basis by white Batswana guides. On safaris in which I participated, guides frequently stopped their vehicles to pick up rubbish. Sightings of endangered species were recorded and reported to conservation groups in Maun, and guides endeavoured to minimise negative impacts on animals from tourists. On one safari I observed Richard scolding a client for whistling at lions, for example. He became furious with a group of South African self-drive tourists who drove close to and disturbed a breeding herd of elephants on their way to the river for a drink. As a consequence of these kinds of fairly common occurrences, Richard is ambivalent about the impacts of tourism on the environment. While he thinks that tourism has been positive in creating an international awareness of the unique ecosystem, he is concerned by the environmental damage the industry facilitates. Vehicles particularly cause problems, with gravel roads and tracks destroying vegetation, fuel entering waterways and emissions polluting the air. Richard’s ambivalence about the industry fairly well represents the views of white Batswana. While the industry is perceived as flawed, it is considered on the whole to provide a number of benefits in terms of

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conservation and community development, as well as providing opportunities for the coveted bush-based vocations. As Grace commented: In this country what are the big things? It’s diamonds, beef and tourism. Out of those things, tourism is the most appealing. To me it embodies everything that people need to focus on in life. It brings in money, it provides jobs, it necessitates a need for conservation and awareness of your environment … I like the product. I like that people are coming to Botswana and are going to experience Africa. It’s something I can put my heart and soul in, and believe it’s a good thing to do.

As evident in Grace’s comments, white Batswana’s role in promoting conservation through tourism lends an aura of legitimacy to their sense of connection to the land. It has been argued, however, that conservation by whites in Africa is used not only for augmenting a sense of legitimacy, but for more sinister purposes. In one such instance in southern Rhodesia, the colonial government’s Land Husbandry Act of 1951 imposed widespread changes to the preferred practices of land use and management by local people on native reserves. While the colonial government’s rhetoric constructed this as an essential conservation measure, most commentators in the contemporary period see the move as intentionally alienating large numbers of African people from the land in order to provide a stable industrial labour force for settler enterprises (Phimister 1993). In more recent times, Pilossof (2012: 31) describes the rush to incorporate wildlife enterprises on white farms in Zimbabwe subsequent to the passing of the Land Acquisition Act in the early 1990s, which decreed that land could be compulsorily acquired by government if underutilised. These ‘conservation’ operations, and the considerable tourism revenue they generated for white farmers, have been viewed with scepticism by politicians and many of the nation’s poor, who continue to be alienated from the land and such opportunities (Pilossof 2012: 31–32). In the words of Terrence Ranger (1999: 3), in Zimbabwe, and some may argue among whites in Botswana, ‘whites have not relied only on symbolic assertion of control over the [environment]. They have also called upon “science” – geology, pre-history, archaeology and, above all, ecology. By these means they have proclaimed their rights (and duties) as guardians of the land’. Furthermore, the positioning of whites as guardians of African nature is seen by some as hypocritical, as European encroachment has historically been a primary catalyst for much of the wildlife destruction. In Ngamiland, Mbaiwa (2002: 114) contends that the commencement of trade in ivory, feathers, skins and furs changed the perception of the local community to wild animals. Their reconfiguration as a commercial

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resource and the vast profits attainable resulted in over-harvesting and considerable losses in animal populations (Mbaiwa 2002: 114). Whites’ role as Africa’s conservationists, well-intentioned as this may be, continues to be received with derision by some.

Cattle Industry versus Tourism Conservation via tourism is viewed particularly sceptically by those with interests in cattle. Cattle are the cornerstone of the BaTawana economy as well as some of the region’s other ethnic groups, such as the Herero, and the significance of cattle in terms of symbolic, political and economic capital within the nation cannot be underestimated. Relationships between conservation-oriented tourism outfitters and the cattle industry are fraught, with tensions over land use and water resources ongoing (Kgathi et al. 2004; Mbaiwa et al. 2003). In years of drought, farmers have traditionally utilised the floodplains of the delta to graze their cattle, but in 1982 the delta was declared a cattle-free zone, robbing pastoralists of this safeguard (Kgathi et al. 2004: 24). Cattle owners resent the protection of wildlife, as their livestock – and at times villagers themselves – are threatened by predators; their crops are frequently damaged or destroyed by elephants and other wildlife; and diseases are transmitted from wild to domestic animals. For communities living in areas zoned for wildlife, the denial of rights to keeping cattle is perceived very negatively, as cattle have great and diverse value in northern Botswana: Cattle are sold to raise cash quickly. Cattle also provide milk and byproducts such as hides that are sold to tanners and contribute to household income security; cow dung when used as manure for crops enhances household food security and when mixed with clay is a durable construction material used to build traditional houses. Equally pertinent, cattle are a status symbol with high cultural values – they are used to pay the bride price, passed to the next generation by inheritance, slaughtered on special occasions like wedding [sic] or funerals (significant events for enhancing family and community cohesion) and used as draught power in agriculture. (Mbaiwa, Ngwenya and Kgathi 2008: 163)

The restrictions on keeping cattle in many wildlife management areas (WMAs), along with the government’s support of conservation, has led to the commonly expressed sentiment that ‘wildlife is the government’s cattle’, which enriches the state to the detriment of local people. This sentiment has manifested in considerable distrust of the government, and

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after the outbreak in Ngamiland of Contagious Bovine Pleuro Pneumonia (CBPP) in 1995 all 320,000 cattle north of the Kuke fence in Ngamiland were killed to prevent the further spread of the disease, and in order to protect the EU beef market (Kgathi, Ngwenya and Wilk 2007: 300). Some Batswana farmers felt that this was facilitated not least to further aid the development of the tourism industry (Solway 2010 personal communication). While farmers were compensated, many of those who opted for cash spent rather than invested it, and cattle stocks were only partially rebuilt. Ndozi, Nthibe and Bandeke (1999) found that only 30 per cent of households in the region owned cattle after the event, compared with 70 per cent prior to it. This has had a major impact on rural communities on account of the varied values associated with cattle, with direct ramifications including employment losses, increases in childhood malnutrition and increased welfare dependency (Kgathi, Ngwenya and Wilk 2007: 301). This incident reflects the contested nature of land use in the region.

Conservation and Community Alienation Conservation is not only viewed negatively by pastoralists, but also by the rural poor, who possess neither cattle, nor the opportunity to access benefits from tourism. Throughout Africa the reality of nature tourism and conservation tends to be that a small minority benefit, while the remote area communities most affected are not only alienated from the economic and social gains, but are often negatively impacted due to forced relocations, decreased access to land and resources and increases in social problems. In Ngamiland, the rural poor are heavily dependent on natural resources for their livelihoods. This is via access to: fishing and hunting; land for agriculture and livestock keeping; veld products, tubers and wild fruits for food; reeds for thatching; and mokola palm leaves for basket weaving (Mbaiwa et al. 2008: 157; Kgathi et al. 2006: 4). The privatisation of land for tourism and conservation purposes, along with the erection of fences for the commercial cattle industry, has rendered inaccessible many of these natural resources upon which the poor rely (Magole 2009b: 620). These communities are also the least equipped to take advantage and benefit from opportunities arising with tourism. Conservationists’ major coup in the Okavango, the establishment of the Moremi Game Reserve, exemplifies the ways in which the rural poor are alienated by environmental protection measures. Some 1500-2000 people, predominantly Bushmen, but also Wayeyi and HaMbukushu, were relocated at the time of the establishment of the Moremi Game Reserve in 1963. Memories of the relocations include the burning of huts

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and a sense of powerlessness (Bolaane 2004: 409). This was the result of communities feeling inadequately consulted, with the decision being made by the BaTawana at the Maun kgotla before being imposed upon them as a foregone conclusion (Bolaane 2004: 407). Leaning on the work of Escobar, Dominy (2003: 57) describes the two waves of capitalism in the Global South, the first being nineteenth-century imperialism, and the second being ‘transglobal capitalism in its ecological phase, through ecodevelopment and its discourses of sustainable development and biodiversity conservation in the late twentieth century’. Yet, in contrast to many other parks in southern Africa, Moremi was not an external colonial imposition, as its establishment was strongly supported by the BaTawana rulers. In her history of the reserve’s establishment, Bolaane (2005: 255) describes ‘the exceptionality of the Botswana context: not only had African leaders maintained rights to use and manage wildlife, but there was an exceptional degree of cultural exchange between white settlers and the Tawana elite’. The fact that the BaTawana were integral to the development of the reserve did not diminish the negative impacts for the Bushmen, Wayeyi and HaMbukushu residents, however. In addition to relocations, the way of life of people living in the area was drastically altered by the denial of rights to hunt in this most wildlife-rich of areas, while the requirement to pay entrance fees to an area perceived as their traditional lands added insult to injury (Mbaiwa 2002: 118). Khwai villagers felt particularly disenfranchised by the move and continue to this day to have disputes with government and local tourism operations. The Khwai community was moved twice to make way for the reserve and its shifting boundaries, yet on account of tensions with DWNP officials and tourism operators in the region, the government continued to refuse to provide services to the village and strongly encouraged residents to relocate to the neighbouring villages of Sankuyo and Mababe (Bolaane 2002: 94). In 2005, after years of struggle, the government finally conceded to gazette the village as a permanent settlement, entitling residents to essential services including piped water, schooling, health services, roads and other infrastructure. Mbaiwa, Ngwenya and Kgathi (2008: 169) suggest the capitulation was likely owing to the government wishing to avoid further international condemnation beyond that surrounding the legal battle of the CKGR Bushmen. The eviction of communities from within the reserve’s boundaries is consistent with the global national parks model that sees ‘wilderness’ as necessarily separate from human settlements. In this paradigm, ‘for the observer of animals, the indigenous peoples of Africa and Asia [a]re a nuisance, a threat to conservation’ (Haraway 1992: 7). The absence of

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people is certainly a fact centrally celebrated within Okavango tourism marketing, with safari companies explicitly selling tours on the basis of the ‘unspoilt’ wilderness of the region. The disputes referred to in relation to the Khwai community in many cases are fundamentally the result of their ongoing presence at the border of the reserve. Mbaiwa (2002: 119) describes how Khwai village ‘is claimed to be destroying the wilderness picture that tourist clients are paying to see’. The refuse and litter that is present in and around the village, along with the presence of domestic animals, is thought to spoil the aesthetics and conflict with tourist expectations of the Okavango wilderness (Mbaiwa 2002: 119). As mentioned above, white Batswana in many cases strongly oppose such a construction of nature and human life as irreconcilable. Richard described how some safaris he has guided have attempted to challenge such nature/culture dichotomisations through taking tourists into rural Botswana and not solely to the reserves and national parks: They come here paying to see one of Africa’s last beautiful wildlife areas, and you take them through rural Botswana, where there is wildlife, but there are people and all sorts of things there. You know their first impression is that this is really wrong, you know, that: “You shouldn’t be taking us to a place like this. This is supposed to be a true wildlife experience!” And they want to spend maximum time [with] lion, leopards, cheetah, buffalo, elephants; everything like that. And you try explain it to them: “Listen, this is actually really important. This is what most of Botswana, and most of Africa, is actually like. There are animals, but the people live here as well, and this is a part of what Africa’s about – a part none of you bloody tourists ever get to see because you all just want to go to the lodges. This is showing you, you’re getting an exclusive inside look at what actually goes on in this country. And don’t worry, we’ll take you to the wildlife areas, but this is the story”. And it is a story, because the river starts and then goes, and goes, all the way through the Okavango; comes out of Maun, and goes down the Boteti and falls into the pans. And now you’re starting where it’s really dry, and then we’re moving our way up into the Okavango, and it reveals a story, you know, as you go along. And it was always amazing how many people – especially the people who had asked for their money back on the third day and said, “we want to go home, and this is all bullshit!” – at the end of the trip said: “We wish we could go back to Boteti now. We want, now we see, we want to go and see that again”. Rural Botswana – it is beautiful! It’s beautiful. I mean these places were amazing because you’d be driving out in that valley at the back there, and you’ve got wildebeest with cows over there, and you’ve got a flock of ostrich over there. And you’ve got a group of zebra over there and donkeys

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walking around. And you’ve got some guy riding down the road, and you stop, and you start chatting and [ask], “Where you off to?” And he’s going to town to tell the wildlife guys that his cow got eaten by a lion last night. I think it was amazing, you know. So much of the culture of Botswana is brilliant, but so little of it is exposed to tourists. When you get the opportunity to do it, it’s lovely.

While the structure of the mainstream Okavango tourism industry continues to be organised in such a way as to maintain the illusion of an unpopulated, ‘pristine’ wilderness, some white Batswana individuals are working towards a more inclusive and realistic experience of the country.

Community Development and Tourism While I have highlighted the inequities in the distribution of benefits from tourism, it is also important to recognise the positive outcomes the industry achieves in terms of community development and conservation. The diversification of the economy, and the employment opportunities this has provided, are perhaps the industry’s greatest contributions to the local community. Batswana working directly in tourism I found to be mostly complimentary about the industry, despite some issues. Ronny, the MoTawana barman, recounted having worked previously as a bricklayer, which was difficult and exhausting work. He much preferred his subsequent role as a mokoro poler, which paid 120 pula a day (U.S. $24) – a sum with which he was very pleased. The work, however, was too irregular, leading him to seek out his current role in the bar of a tourist lodge. He described the greatest challenge of working in tourism as ‘misunderstandings’, along with poor relations with tourists: ‘Some people in the countries that they are from do not even say good morning! That is difficult when you have people like that,’ he observed. ‘The Dutch are bad, and some of them have red hair!’ Despite having to deal with such disconcerting differences, as well as rudeness that is in some cases underpinned by racism, there is a sense of national pride fostered through work in tourism that is illustrated in Ronny’s response to my questions about why tourists come to the region: ‘They come because they can see the animals and a good view of Africa; more animals and a beautiful view. Good people here, too. They feel safer here than in Zimbabwe because it is peaceful, no war. And Batswana are polite to foreigners’. Beyond employment, some tourist businesses aim to further contribute to the community. The largest tourism outfit in the Okavango runs a successful programme in Maun aimed at both community development

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and conservation. This programme hosts disadvantaged local children aged between ten and seventeen years for periods of up to six days in the company’s luxury camps. The programme aims to help children who have been affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic and poverty, through teaching life skills at the camps, while educating children about the environment and facilitating access to some of the most beautiful parts of the delta. A white Motswana family is heavily involved in the programme and closes their camp to tourists for six weeks each year in order to host groups of children. They believe it gives those that attend a great sense of confidence, providing them with the opportunity to see the kinds of vocations available in their local area through tourism. For this family, and the many other white Batswana involved in community development projects, a strong sense of satisfaction is derived from the belief they are making a positive contribution to less fortunate community members. This was the case at a tourist camp at the edge of the Makgadikgadi pans that I visited on seven occasions over the course of my fieldwork. This particular camp was established with clear conservation goals, having been developed in response to the large numbers of wildlife dying in drought years along the newly erected veterinary fence. The river where the camp is located forms a natural divide between an extensive wildlife area and cattle grazing lands. In 1995, however, the annual flood movements and ongoing drought led to the river drying up. The lack of water led to intense competition and conflict between pastoralists and wildlife over the few remaining shallow pools. In response, the government decided to build a fence along the river bed, both to prevent the spread of disease from wildlife to livestock and to minimise the conflict occurring. The big issue became on which side of the riverbed the fence would be built. It was known that the river would flow again in the future, and water was still attainable from digging into the riverbed, so the pastoralists were concerned to ensure the riverbed was on their side of the fence. The (soon-to-be) camp owner and other conservation-minded community members were, however, deeply concerned about the numbers of wildlife dying, and lobbied for at least a kilometre of the river to be on the wildlife side of the fence. The soon-to-be owner of this camp grew up in Maun and is the son of white Kenyans, who moved to Botswana in the 1960s to work in the safari hunting industry. He described the negotiations as follows: I went to the community and I said, “okay, if you lose this stretch of river bed, what do you want in return for that? Are you going to ask for compensation from the government or from us?” And without hesitating they said: “We need jobs. We need employment. You put a camp up permanently, you

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employ as many people as you can from this area, then we will consider it”. And as long as the people feel that they are benefiting more from this camp than from their own pastoral activities [they want to participate]. And that’s eventually what happened.

The tension between pastoralists, local communities, tourism operators and conservationists is clear, and yet this particular situation was resolved in a way that satisfied all parties, with the camp fulfilling the community’s requirements, the owner running a profitable business and wildlife being saved. In order to support the wildlife trapped by the veterinary fence, the camp owner pumps up to 100,000 litres of water from the dried-up riverbed daily. During the dry season, this water supports up to 5,000 zebra and numerous other species, including large herds of elephants. This project is funded by the international tourists who stay at the camp and observe the animals drinking at the waterhole. Not least on account of the extremely arid conditions in the area, the camp owner described the villagers previously as, ‘some of the poorest people in the world. I mean seriously poor’. The camp has provided jobs that range across the spectrum from cleaners, cooks and tradespeople to professional guides and management. The camp manager at the time of my research was a young Motswana woman, whose father had worked as a tracker for the camp owner’s professional hunter father. His parents paid for the young woman’s schooling and, after she graduated, she came to the camp owner seeking work. He employed her as manager of the camp and has nothing but praise for her capability. With a few years’ experience of running the camp she will have the skills and experience to progress far in the tourism industry. The development potential of tourism is evident in this example where in one generation an illiterate man’s daughter has reached upper management level. Benefits to the community extend beyond employment. A Village Development Committee was established to manage benefits and receives a levy for each night a tourist stays at the camp. The camp owner sources building materials locally and hires skilled craftspeople from the surrounding villages to build and maintain the camp. He has contributed significant funds to the local primary school and provides the local community with transportation to Maun to access services. He does a lot of work with the village children and, in particular, hosts several camps each year that emphasise art and environmental education. In addition, he has an open door policy whereby he welcomes local villagers to come and visit the camp whenever they desire. This is in order to ‘allow a sense of involvement amongst the people who lease their tribal land to us’. The owner has oriented the camp’s policies and practices around his firmly

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held belief that in order for conservation to be supported, it is crucial that wildlife benefits local people directly. The camp owner described changes in his own perceptions regarding the intersections of community needs, tourism and conservation through this project: Before here, I never got involved with communities really. Ja, it was always go on safari as far away from people as possible; the more pristine wilderness areas, far from people, far from other tourists. But for the first time here I was exposed to being in the middle of this conflict situation that is happening all over Africa. I now have a much clearer picture of the whole environmental issue, the threat to the environment and how we need to make places like this work. Tourism, I do believe, is the engine that conservation needs to work. You need tourism. I don’t care what kind of tourism it is. Any tourism is better than any alternative, which is cattle or farming, building dams and shutting down rivers. Tourism is, I believe, Africa’s biggest potential. There’s so much demand for tourism. I mean look what people are paying! And look how many people tourism can potentially employ. I mean you could have ten places like this, just along [this river]. I’m employing forty people. You know that’s four hundred, and each [employed] person in this area supports eleven more people.

The shift described in this camp owner’s perception of tourism towards a more community-based approach signals positive change. Yet, by no means are all operators as progressive in their approach, and while this camp owner is optimistic about the future potential in his area, the impact of tourism at the time, while profound for those families directly involved, was yet to reach the majority of rural dwellers in the region. A study of attitudes to wildlife and conservation generally, and predation on livestock particularly, in the Makgadikgadi region by Hemson et al. (2009: 2723) indicates that in living in a wildlife contact zone ‘the average person is still losing more than they gain’. They go on to say that the Makgadikgadi community were ‘unaware of, or unimpressed by tourism’s contribution to their livelihoods’ (Hemson et al. 2009: 2723).

Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) Programme In recent decades, the alienation of local communities from the benefits of tourism has also been acknowledged by the government, who recognise that communities are more inclined to conserve wildlife if they are reaping benefits from its presence. To this end the government established the

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CBNRM programme in 1989 in buffer zones between national parks and human settlements, of which there are currently 109 operational (GoB 2013: point 44). Subsequent to forming Community Based Organisations (CBOs) and securing leases on wildlife concessions, communities can either work with private companies or independently to run tourism operations, from camp sites and lodges to photographic and hunting safaris. Numerous critiques have been levelled at the programme, ranging from exclusion of participation for some communities, unequal distribution of benefits, ongoing foreign domination, lack of skills and capital among target communities to make the most of schemes, and corruption, mismanagement and increased community conflict, among others (see Mbaiwa and Stronza 2011: 1952–55 for a summary of the critiques). Despite these significant problems in the implementation and management of CBNRM, a number of communities, including Khwai discussed above, have reaped significant benefits from the programme (Rihoy and Maguranyanga 2010; Novelli, Barnes and Humavindu 2006; Thakadu et al. 2005; Mbaiwa 2004, 2002; Kgathi et al. 2004). In 2007, Mbaiwa and Stronza (2011) surveyed resident attitudes to conservation and tourism in the three villages bordering the Moremi Game Reserve: Khwai, Sankuyo and Mababe, who had been forced to relocate in the course of the establishment of the reserve in the 1960s. Having conducted similar surveys in 1998, they had clear grounds for comparison, and they found that ‘94.4% of the households noted that they are happy to see tourists visiting the Okavango Delta’ (Mbaiwa and Stronza 2011: 1954). This constitutes a wholesale shift in attitudes among these communities, members of which had previously expressed strong opposition to this industry that they felt had been party to their alienation from their lands and traditional lifestyles. Residents’ shift in views is largely the result of livelihoods earned from tourists. As one 83-year-old man from Mababe put it: ‘We get income from tourists who visit our area, hence we are able to buy food for our families. If they do not come, we get nothing, and we will starve’ (Mbaiwa and Stronza 2011: 1954). Significantly, 90 per cent of their respondents did not wish to replace tourism with pastoral or agricultural activities (Mbaiwa and Stronza 2011: 1955). Along with direct income from selling goods to tourists, such as the famous Botswana baskets, benefits from CBNRM include greatly increased employment opportunities in the local area (allowing for families to stay together), infrastructure development such as roads, trust monies, funeral funds, access to transport, recreation funding, education scholarships, water services, housing, communications devices and support for the vulnerable (Mbaiwa and Stronza 2011: 1955, 1957). The unequivocal shift in attitudes among members of these previously disenfranchised communities

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in the years CBNRM has been running makes recent indications of waning government support for the programme, such as the stripping of trust status from some communities, especially concerning. Most particularly, the recent ban instituted on hunting will have a profound effect in limiting the benefits accrued for communities through CBNRM, which I discuss further in the subsequent chapter.

Conclusion Belonging through Tourism The tourism industry contributes to emplacement and belonging for white Batswana in several ways. Being able to earn an income and provide for one’s family is a fundamental precursor to belonging for many. Achieving this in a manner seen as meaningful through the highly valued bushbased lifestyle strengthens a sense of worth and belonging further. While there is some ambivalence about tourists themselves, their palpable otherness evident in their physical and social awkwardness in the Okavango serves to emphasise the emplacement and belonging of white Batswana. The gendered nature of engagement in tourism, however, speaks to a certain level of alienation of women from the belonging enjoyed by men, who occupy the archetypal Okavango vocation of safari guiding. Yet, the shared knowledge and experience of the industry among both men and women forms the basis of a bond between community members and serves as an important component of collective identity. This is to the extent that white Batswana see Okavango tourism as who they are as much as what they do. White Batswana emphasise and celebrate the shared frontier cultural knowledge, values and skills that are mobilised within their work in tourism. They perceive such qualities as formed within and adapted to the Okavango’s unique environment and in this way contingent on an autochthonous relationship to place in the experiential sense. Through their emphasis on localised skills and values, collective identities are constructed as deeply emplaced, and a strong sense of belonging is made possible. Despite some recognition of the negative impact the industry has had in terms of alienation of the rural poor, white Batswana tend to downplay these harsh realities through emphasising the industry’s contemporary contributions to community development and wildlife conservation. Developing businesses, providing job opportunities, paying taxes and supporting community development projects allow white Batswana a sense that they are contributing to the Okavango region and the nation more broadly.

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While tourism currently does much to facilitate white Batswana senses of connection, this may not continue indefinitely to be the case. The more highly paid and esteemed roles in the industry continue to be dominated disproportionately by white people. Criticism of white dominance in the industry tends to be primarily directed towards expatriate whites, and the calls for localisation have in fact on many levels served to benefit white Batswana. The population growth fuelled by tourism has meant, however, that the very personal relationships that have been the cornerstone of positive interracial connections between citizens in the past are increasingly replaced by a lack of intimacy, with the categories of ‘black’ and ‘white’ becoming more meaningful. The growing resentment of inequities within the industry and the increasingly prevalent race-based discourses will, as a consequence, have potentially negative implications for white citizens in the longer term.

Chapter 3

Hunting and Ambiguity in Belonging K Hunting has been integral to white Batswana’s identity, culture and economy from the time of their settlement in the Okavango in the nineteenth century. In 2009, however, the newly elected and notoriously anti-hunting President, Ian Khama, spearheaded the implementation of restrictions on the safari hunting industry, beginning with the government denying renewals on numerous long-standing hunting concessions. As of January 2014, with the exception of the small number of private game ranches, all forms of hunting, from subsistence practice to safari hunting, were banned throughout Botswana. Despite the recent ban, I include this chapter on hunting as the safari hunting industry was operating at full capacity at the time of my primary fieldwork between 2006 and 2007 and employed many of my interlocutors. Hunting continues to hold a central place within the community’s identity, and many hope that the ban will prove temporary. In this chapter, I argue that hunting has had an ambiguous effect on white Batswana belonging. While it has been a dominant economic activity and primary leisure pursuit in the past, rendering it central to white Batswana experiential autochthony, criticisms levelled at the trophy hunting industry in recent years by the international and local communities have had a great impact, leaving hunters insecure about their livelihoods and defensive of their practices. I begin with a discussion of the historical significance of hunting in the region, before briefly describing the safari hunting industry at the time of my fieldwork. Subsequently, I explore how hunting has shaped and determined white Batswana familial relationships, collective identity and cultural values, and the role the practice has played in facilitating white

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Batswana relationships to the land and emplacement in the Okavango. Finally, I examine the effect hunting has had on ties with the broader African community.

The History of White Batswana Hunting in the Okavango Hunting has been the primary drawcard for the white community to the Okavango from the earliest explorers in the nineteenth century, through to the East African professional hunters that established the trophy hunting industry in the late 1950s. Tlou (1985: 64) describes Tawana chiefs inviting early European missionaries, hunters and traders to Lake Ngami in order to access firearms and other imported goods. In 1849, David Livingstone’s party accepted one such invitation from Chief Letsholathebe and was the first of many Europeans to enter the region (Tlou 1985: 65). Ngamiland was integrated into the Bechuanaland protectorate in 1894, at which time increasing numbers of whites immigrated. In addition to incoming bureaucrats, the abundance of game in the region attracted white traders from contiguous nations (Mbaiwa, Darkoh and Nakizito 2003: 354; Tlou 1985: 67). One descendant of this group, a 79-year-old white Motswana man, described his grandfather’s decision to move to Bechuanaland from South Africa in the late 1800s to trade in wildlife products: ‘He came to the south of Bechuanaland, and he bartered with the local people selling ivory and skins’. He eventually moved his family to the Okavango on a permanent basis, and the family are now in their fifth generation in Maun. Hunting and trading continued as the primary enterprises of the white community throughout most of the twentieth century (Bolaane 2005: 244). For complex political and environmental reasons, not unrelated to moves to overthrow colonial powers, the hunting industry was in decline in East Africa in the middle of the twentieth century, resulting in professional hunters looking elsewhere to continue their careers (see Steinhart 2006). Consequently, hunting provided the catalyst for a further wave of white immigration into the Okavango, with East African professional hunters establishing the safari hunting industry in the late 1950s that has so strongly influenced the economy, cultural values and lifestyles of the white Batswana. Bechuanaland was an attractive prospect for this group on account of the diverse and abundant wildlife, the lack of an existing hunting industry, the vast areas of unpopulated bushlands and, perhaps most importantly, the absence of the violent Independence struggles that were taking place elsewhere in the region. Land was tightly controlled by the Tawana chiefs, upon whom white hunters were dependent for access

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to land and wildlife resources (Tlou 1985: 68, 77, 89). One white hunter, John Kingsley-Heath (2006: 68), writes of the good relationships his outfit had with the BaTawana in the 1960s and 1970s, whereby leases to hunting areas were secured from the Paramount Chief annually, and continued tenure was contingent on good relations between the Chief, members of the kgotla and the safari companies. At the time, the region had no modern infrastructure and minimal development, and Maun was a small African village with only a handful of European residents. Reminiscing about this period, Cedric described Maun as a ‘small little nothing place’ until the hunting industry ‘put Maun on the map’. This was through opening up international tourism and fuelling the development of the town in terms of infrastructure, support businesses and formal employment. While many white Batswana claim to long for a pre-development Okavango, there is a sense of pride evident in Cedric’s statement in the white community’s pivotal role within the safari industry, which to a large extent facilitated Maun’s transition from a small African village to a place of international renown. In Maun today, virtually all of the long-established white citizen families have been closely involved with safari hunting. Many of the sons of the early trading families formed partnerships with the incoming East African professional hunters, establishing safari companies and attaining their professional hunter’s licences. They were already equipped with the requisite skills from hunting recreationally ‘for the pot’ (i.e., the cooking pot, for food). A number of white Motswana men who continued with trading or other occupations applied for hunting licences and hunted on a freelance basis. As one 58-year-old builder described: ‘I never hunted for a living. I hunted for a hobby; it was my hobby to hunt. It wasn’t because I had to get the money. I enjoyed hunting, and I enjoyed the entertainment from the clients’. In the sixties and seventies, foreign visitors were very much a novelty in Maun, and community members describe having been excited to make their acquaintance. Interestingly, the families involved in professional hunting have tended to be the families who have remained in Maun across the generations. In the 1970s, the white community was constituted by hunters, traders and bureaucrats in the protectorate government. According to community members, bureaucrats comprised at least 50 per cent of the white community at the time, but in the decade following Independence the majority ‘disappeared’, presumably back to Britain. A 59-year-old woman who lived in Maun during that time explained that whites working in the civil service tended to be single men, whereas the hunters brought their families to Maun and settled on a more permanent basis. The pattern of hunters staying on in the area is attributable in part to

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the hunter’s dependence on the region’s natural resources, relative to the mobility of bureaucratic work. Yet, it also suggests that, at the heart of white Batswana experiential autochthony, the intimate knowledge of land built through hunting serves to develop the sense of a binding connection to place.

Contemporary Safari Hunting Prior to the recent ban, Okavango safari hunting conformed to the principles, practices and ethics of ‘fair-chase hunting’, a form of sport or trophy hunting where wild animals, those that will either take flight from or attack humans, are hunted in unenclosed areas and are thus able to flee the hunter, who is on foot (McCallum 2005: 212). Clients came from the United States primarily, but also various parts of Europe, and paid vast sums for the African safari experience. It is difficult to provide exact monetary figures, as prices varied between companies, and individual safaris were tailored to the clients’ needs in terms of both the species they wished to hunt and the particular concessions utilised. To give a rough indication, a fourteen day elephant hunt cost in the vicinity of U.S. $50,000 for one elephant, with additional costs depending on the weight of the ivory, as well as the licence and trophy fees for any additional animals hunted. The most expensive hunt was for a lion, which could cost up to $150,000, while the cheapest hunts were for plains game, with packages available for around $10,000. Safari length varied depending on the species to be hunted, but most clients visited for between one and three weeks. In June 2007, professional hunter Tony invited me to accompany him on a fourteen day hunting safari. Along with the Bugakhwe tracker and driver, we drove for two days into the heart of the delta to meet the hunting clients flying in from the United States via Maun. The clients, a married couple in their forties from Texas, had bought licences to hunt a buffalo (Syncerus caffer), wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus) and warthog (Phacochoerus africanus), as well as several antelope including a kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros), impala (Aepyceros melampus), tsessebe (Damaliscus lunatus) and red lechwe (Kobus leche). Most days I remained in the vehicle with the hunter’s wife, while Tony, the tracker and client headed out on foot. Hunters prefer as few people as possible on the hunt to minimise the likelihood of alerting the targeted animals. In addition, hunting can be dangerous, and the less people on foot, the less stress for the professional hunter, who is responsible for the party’s safety. On day nine, however, the hunter’s wife and I accompanied the men on a long hunt. The day started in the bitter cold of sunrise, and after breakfast we

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set out to hunt red lechwe. This species of antelope has adapted to life in the floodplains, where they often stand knee-deep in water to graze. We left our shoes in the vehicle and began to wade into the cold waters of the floodplains. We cautiously approached the herd, attempting to remain hidden behind termite mounds and shrubbery. After an hour of stalking the lechwe in the icy water, our legs were completely numb except for the considerable pain of the stiff, spiky grasses that stabbed into our cold, bare feet. I was very alert and a little nervous wading through the water, as we had already seen one large crocodile. When we were within seventy yards of the herd, Tony ascertained that the males within shooting distance were immature. We continued our approach until the herd became wary of our presence, was spooked and moved away. We quit the floodplains and headed for dry land. Walking single file through the forest of a palm island, the vegetation was dense and visibility poor. Tony led with his rifle slung over his shoulder, followed by one of the trackers. The hunter’s wife and I followed, while the client, also bearing a rifle, chivalrously took up the rear position. A few moments after entering the forest, we startled some warthogs that bolted in fear; a wise decision on account of the licence in hand. Deeper into the island, we entered a clearing and saw a lone bull elephant grazing. I felt very nervous as we walked within fifty yards of the massive bull. We saw many more animals over the next hour, including zebra, impala and wildebeest, and the client was fascinated by a snake skin we found shed by a Mozambique spitting cobra (Naja mossambica). By midday the sun was burning hot and the clients, unused to strenuous exercise, were sweating and straining under the weight of rifles, cameras, water bottles and binoculars. We left the forest and Tony called the driver on the radio to come and collect us. After a relaxed picnic lunch in the shade, we spent the afternoon driving around looking for kudu – a notoriously elusive and beautiful antelope often referred to by hunters as the ‘grey ghost’. We saw one family of kudus soon after setting out, but the males were immature. At 3.45 P.M., Tony spotted another kudu; again it was immature. At 5.15 P.M., the tracker skilfully spotted a large male kudu hidden deep in the bush. After Tony confirmed that it was mature and the horns a desirable trophy, we drove on for several minutes and stopped the vehicle at a distance to avoid alarming the kudu. Tony, the tracker and client set out on foot. After about half an hour, we heard the crack of the rifle echo through the bush. We drove over to find that the client had shot the kudu cleanly through the shoulder, hitting its vital organs and killing it rapidly. At the site of the death, the client sat quietly stroking the kudu’s flank, and running his hands along the horns. He did this after every kill on the

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safari and explained this behaviour as follows: ‘Once it’s done and the animal is down, almost without fail, I’m a little sad. There’s a reverence for the animal I’ve killed. The life I’ve taken. That affects me a little, it chokes me up a little, and I want to spend a little time with that feeling’. While the client sat with the kudu, Tony hacked away the surrounding grass with a panga (large knife) to improve visibility for the photos, which are as significant a trophy as the animal horns. There was blood trickling from the dead kudu’s mouth, and its bloody tongue lolled out. Tony tucked the tongue back inside its mouth and covered the blood on the ground with sand to ensure the photographs were ‘tasteful’. While I had already seen a buffalo, impala and tsessbe shot on the safari, I was unsettled by the kudu’s death. To see such a beautiful, graceful animal reduced to a bleeding carcass weighed heavily on my emotions and sat uneasily on my conscience. Professional hunters tend to have less sentimentality about animals shot than someone like myself, who has never hunted and for the most part has lived in urban settings. They are desensitised to these kinds of emotions from the constant exposure they have had to hunting from a very young age, and they are more pragmatic in their understanding of the cycles of life and death. After photos were taken, the large carcass was unceremoniously cut in half and loaded onto the vehicle. Back at camp, the horns were removed and treated for the client’s trophy collection, the skin preserved with salt, and all the meat and offal taken to the kitchen to be eaten by the clients and staff. Absolutely nothing was wasted. After a fortnight of hunting, the clients returned to Texas, having shot all animals on their licence, except the warthog that had managed to outsmart the hunters. I flew back to Maun, while Tony stayed on in the concession with his next clients, a party of Russian hunters. I have provided this detailed description as the elite nature of the sport, and the antipathy many hold towards it, mean that many people are unaware of how daily life unfolds on safari.

Hunting, Community Relationships and Collective Identity Childhood Experiences and Senses of Community through Hunting While the role of professional hunter in the safari industry has been an almost exclusively male domain, virtually every white citizen in their twenties or older has participated in hunting as a youth, although the majority no longer hunted on a regular basis at the time of my research. One 64-year-old professional hunter described how he had been hunting ‘ever since I can remember’. He went on to say: ‘When I can start

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remembering, I was in the bush with my Dad, and that was it’. Not only are his first memories of being in the bush, but, significantly, he ties his very consciousness and awareness of self to being in the bush. Hunting’s centrality for white Batswana mirrors the experience of many white African cultures. Of the colonial period, Steinhart (2006: 92) describes how ‘hunting in particular and sporting activity in general would come to be the chief feature of self-identification of the Kenya settler elite’. For white Batswana hunting has, until recently, been a normalised pursuit that children have been exposed to from a very young age. As adults, however, white Batswana reflect on these experiences ambivalently. Lowenthal’s (1985: 40) observation that people mobilise the past selectively to validate or explain the present proves cogent in this instance, where those who have chosen to work as professional hunters describe idyllic childhoods roaming the bush hunting. In their work with Afrikaners in Ghanzi, Russell and Russell (1979: 55) describe how: ‘Men recall with pride the tender age at which they shot their first lion or wildebeest’. Tony tells the story of hunting guinea fowl with a twelve-gauge shotgun as a very small boy, being bowled over backwards by the recoil, and standing up shouting: ‘Did I get one? Did I get one?’ His enthusiasm for hunting and the associated outdoor lifestyle is clear: I got my first pellet gun, I think, when I was five. I couldn’t even pick the thing up it was so heavy. I used to wake up – I used to have little local friends – and I used to have traps all over the countryside: wake up in the morning, go patrol my traps. I used to leave in the morning and come back in the evening. And then my mother tried to teach me my first two years of schooling, and that just gave me all the more incentive to get out of the house [laughs]. So, before sunrise, my fishing rod, my pellet gun and myself went boom, we were gone, and you never saw me until it got dark … I shot my first impala when I was 5 years old with my Dad’s .22. And ja, I’ve just always enjoyed hunting.

By contrast, those who have ideological objections to hunting and are critical of the safari industry tend to speak of their first experiences of killing animals as quite traumatic. When I ask a 45-year-old citizen working in photographic tourism if he went hunting when he was young, he responded: Yeah, no I did. Since I was tiny. We were always out hunting … I went once when I was about eight. I went on a safari with Dad and a French client, who said it was cool to bring me along. We went on safari in the Kalahari, which was wonderful. It was about three weeks during one of my school breaks. I remember it vividly, hey. I remember the drive down, and

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I shot my first animal on the way, which I actually felt terrible about for the rest of the trip; a little steenbok [Raphicerus campestris]. It was actually quite horrible.

There is ambivalent emotion in this statement. The chance to spend time in the unique environment of the Kalahari is seen as ‘wonderful’. Yet, the actual shooting filled this man with guilt and sadness. Another Motswana in his thirties remembers little about his first hunt, except the aversion he felt to the skinning process, where he was disgusted by all the blood. A number speak of feeling they were pressured into shooting their first large mammal by the expectations of their fathers and peers. The negative emotions surrounding these early hunting memories indicate that for those who choose to continue to hunt, a process of desensitisation occurs from the initial uneasiness, to the pleasure gained in hunting as adults. There are many white Batswana men who speak of having hunted prolifically as young men, until reaching a certain point at which they ceased the practice. For some, there was a single experience that turned them off hunting. For the son of one professional hunter, this was a large-scale elephant cull he worked on at age eighteen in one of Zimbabwe’s national parks: ‘It was almost an instant attitude change. I went from the whole hunting mentality to totally not. From that to rescuing moths out of toilets!’ Similarly, a 50-year-old community member recounted the single event that changed his views on hunting: When I was about eleven, I shot a dove with my pellet gun; about the 500th I’d shot in my life. And it just sat down on its belly, and its head tipped, and then it blinked slowly, and a drop of blood came out of its shoulder here, like a little jewel. Just trickled down. Eish! I still battle with it. I don’t shoot anymore. I’ve got a big problem with it. But I grew up shooting and killing until I was about eleven. The hunters would be rolling on the floor laughing at me now!

His mention of potential mockery for his sensitivity demonstrates the cultural association of hunting with masculinity. The qualities of bravery, toughness and a certain level of machismo associated with white Batswana frontier male identities are in evidence here. That said, this man is very vocal about his views against hunting and certainly continues to be a respected community member. Thus, while in the past hunting was integral to constructs of masculinity, in recent years it has been seen more as a matter of personal choice. Hunters are popularly depicted as hyper-masculine, yet, as with white Batswana masculinities more generally, I found hunters’ gender identities

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to be more complex than such representations would imply. Draper’s (1998) intriguing study of early twentieth-century game rangers in South Africa describes how they were popularly perceived as militant, misogynistic and often violent individuals. Contrary to this stereotype, Draper (1998: 823) argues that the effect of prolonged work and commitment to the wilderness led to ‘a reflexively softened masculinity’ characterised by ‘the two contrasting faces of the game ranger, a combination common to men in conservation: the aggressive fighter and the sensitive artistic thinker’. Like Draper’s (1998: 826) game rangers, the ‘soft intimacy of these hard men’ frequently emerged in white Batswana’s sentimental attachment to wildlife. For example, in the course of a buffalo hunt, after the animal was shot, Tony hacked away at the carcass with an axe, eventually chopped it in half and loaded it onto the vehicle. As we drove back to camp, this normally quiet man, covered in blood, began to describe at length the beauty of mopane leaves in spring time, and the remarkable colour with which they glow when struck by the September sunlight. His tenderness and love for such aspects of nature sits seamlessly alongside his pragmatism in hunting.

Changing Values Anti-hunting Sentiment While these stories point to the fact that hunting was central to the Okavango white community in the past, the global anti-hunting movement has had a substantial impact on community members’ views of hunting in the contemporary period. The increasing division within the community over safari hunting was publicly displayed through the battle over a sign that ensued during the course of my fieldwork. In the middle of one night in late 2006, an anti-hunting white Motswana erected a sign in the centre of town with a picture of an elephant that read: ‘Trophy hunters kill for fun’. Some weeks later, some professional hunters painted over the sign with the words: ‘Trophy hunters pay for conservation’. The anti-hunting individual soon retaliated with the message: ‘Trophy hunters kill for fun: My family needs me’, in addition to splashing red paint over the picture of the elephant, symbolising blood. The sign was the subject of much discussion in town, with people watching the developments with interest and amusement. Within the white community in Maun, criticisms of hunting are voiced predominantly by members of the expatriate community. While there are a handful of vociferous dissenters among white citizens, hunting

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has been so deeply entrenched in community life over so many years that the practice is largely normalised. Hunting for food is certainly considered legitimate: I did not encounter any white Batswana vegetarians, or people who were ideologically against the eating of meat. In August 2011, a popular white Motswana woman in her twenties uploaded a photo album on Facebook, entitled ‘Bird hunting with friends :)’. Many of her Facebook friends ‘liked’ the images and commented approvingly, with the lack of any censure demonstrating the ongoing acceptability of the practice, even among this younger generation. Among white citizens, the limited criticism tends to be focused on commercial trophy hunting, and even this is usually targeted towards a small number of operators perceived as unethical, rather than the industry as a whole. As mentioned, there are a handful of white Batswana who are fervently anti-hunting. One such man argues that not only does safari hunting have negative environmental impacts, but it provides fewer jobs than photographic tourism. He believes there is too much money in the industry and, as a consequence, feels safari hunting companies have the power to manipulate government (a notion contradicted by the recent ban). Mostly though, he is repulsed by clients’ desires to shoot animals for sport. He does not extend this revulsion to professional hunters, about whom he speaks in a paternalistic tone through suggesting that for many it is all they know, resulting from a lack of skills and resourcefulness with which to engage in alternative livelihoods. The fact that many have moved into the photographic industry since the 2014 ban belies such a belief, however. Professional hunters are well aware of the groundswell of anti-hunting sentiment in the global community (Gressier 2014a: 210–11). I was with a 35-year-old professional hunter in a restaurant in Maun one night in late 2006, when he struck up a conversation with a tourist. When she enquired as to what he did for a living, he answered, ‘safaris’. Knowing that she would probably not like the idea of hunting, he preferred not to raise the issue. Another older hunter commented on perceptions of hunting in the United Kingdom: An awful lot of people immediately snub you socially if they find out you’re a hunter. You don’t experience it really here in Maun, because this is a safari town. But in other parts of the world, if people realise you’re a hunter, “Er! Go away you dreadful man”, and things like that.

Interestingly, the international condemnation that hunters are subjected to outside of Botswana may actually serve to strengthen their connectedness with their homeland, where, at least until recently, they have felt

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the practice is for the most part accepted. Yet, the hunter’s reluctance to share his vocation with the female tourist also highlights some level of insecurity in relating to members of the international community, which the man in question described when I questioned him later as a kind of fatigue from explaining and justifying his work to those whose lack of knowledge about the industry does not prevent them from condemning it vociferously.

Gender and Family Connections within Hunting There tends to be a correlation between a person’s views of hunting and the extent of their family’s involvement with the industry. Virtually all the professional hunters I met came from families with long histories of hunting. Within these families, engagement with the practice is contingent upon gender. It was not uncommon for women of previous generations to hunt for the pot, as one white Motswana in his fifties described: ‘My grandmother was a marksman [sic] of note; she only ever used one bullet. When they lived in the delta here, she used to hunt for the pot because my grandfather couldn’t shoot. When they needed meat, she would go shoot impala or whatever, and they would make biltong and eat venison’. In the current period, many white Batswana women have had experience of shooting mammals (usually antelope) for food, and most white Batswana women have had experience shooting birds (usually francolin and guinea fowl) to eat, while all have accompanied hunting parties to the bush. However, at the time of my fieldwork, there were no female professional hunters operating in the Okavango and nor, to my knowledge, have there ever been. This has not precluded women from the industry altogether, and several roles such as office management, client bookings and liaison and logistics have been largely controlled by women. In fact, one of the Okavango’s most influential hunting advocates, who is heavily involved with political lobbying for the industry, is a woman who owns one of Maun’s taxidermy companies. The general rule, though, is that hunting recreationally for meat has been a family and community activity involving mainly men, but also women, while the role of professional hunter within the trophy hunting industry has been unequivocally dominated by men. As a consequence, it could be argued that women are alienated from the kind of belonging that hunters claim to feel through the profession. Yet, most white Batswana women would disagree with this, saying they could be involved if they wished, but have chosen to pursue alternative careers.

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Notwithstanding the gendered nature of engagement, hunting has been important within family dynamics, being an avenue through which parent-child bonds have frequently been developed. A 65-year-old professional hunter told me that he would buy licences and take his children hunting whenever he could during their childhood, and it was evident that he directly equated good parenting with taking his children hunting. This was through the quality time spent together in the bush, and also the positive values he believes hunting teaches children. In many societies, including among white Batswana, the intellectually, emotionally and physically demanding nature of the hunt has led people to believe it is an ennobling pursuit (MacKenzie 1988: 15). Hunting in this sense serves as a rite of passage, where children are perceived to learn patience, perseverance, the value of hard work and an appreciation of the outdoor life, as well as developing valued qualities such as bravery and strategic thinking. The qualities seen to be developed through hunting are valued across the gender divide, and consequently fathers encourage their daughters to spend time in the bush along with their sons. Charlotte and her sister grew up in the National Parks of Botswana, as their father was a game warden. The family also owned a crocodile farm. She describes her childhood as divided between catching crocodiles and collecting their eggs in the river, raising baby crocodiles on the farm and hunting with her father. While the daughters of hunters speak fondly of time spent in the bush with their fathers, they tend not to describe hunting as the primary means through which they form parental bonds. By contrast, sons of professional hunters emphasise the centrality of hunting in their relationships with their fathers. This is not an indication of hunters loving their daughters any less than their sons. Rather, girls tend to develop easy affinities and affectionate relationships with their fathers, while there is at times a certain amount of awkwardness between fathers and sons. In the case of the latter, hunting provides a shared activity around which to develop a relationship. The case of Tony and Richard is instructive in this sense. Tony has a close relationship with his father, which he says developed largely through their shared passion for hunting. Tony’s father is a reserved, quiet man, and hunting provides a means through which he can spend time with his son without awkwardness. Tony’s father gave him his first shotgun at age five, and taught him much of his bush knowledge. In turn, as his father has aged, Tony has supported him through hiring him as a second professional hunter on safaris he has secured in his marketing trips to the Safari Club International conventions in the United States. At the time of my research, his father was no longer physically able to work as a full-time hunter, and did not have the financial resources or inclination

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to market himself independently. As a consequence, the income from the hunts Tony initiated provided a critical resource for him. This arrangement worked well for father and son, as Tony has great respect for his father’s bush experience, and enjoys the time together that hunting allows them to share. He describes his father as happier, more relaxed and more inclined to communicate when he is in the bush. Tony’s brother Richard is an artist, who supplements his income through working as a freelance photographic guide. Richard hunted frequently in his youth, but developed increasing reservations about the trophy hunting industry in his adulthood. He always felt that he had far less of a connection to his father than his older brother, who was always out hunting with his Dad. Despite his ethical discomfort with trophy hunting, his desire to build a stronger relationship with his father led him to take on work as his father’s tracker at age seventeen. He described his motivation for this as follows: [Tony] was always with my Dad, and so we had no relationship. And so working as his tracker was a way for me to develop a relationship with my Dad. My Dad always, he never liked me in a way. I mean I’m sure he did, but I wasn’t the son he expected. You know, he thought I would go and live in a city, and I was probably going to turn out to be gay, and I was going to do some other weird shit ... And it was just amazing for us to develop that relationship. For him to find out more about me, you know, to start humouring the way I am. I don’t particularly like hunting. I don’t like killing, and I don’t ever want to see a lion get shot or anything like that. It doesn’t appeal to me at all. But it was a way to get to know my Dad.

Richard’s sense of alienation from his father and his attempts to rectify this illustrate the important role of hunting within male familial relationships. The proscriptions of masculinity are also evident where Richard, as an artist who leads a relatively alternative lifestyle by Maun’s standards, feels his father thinks he must be homosexual. Homosexuality is not readily accepted by many white Batswana men, and it is telling that this taboo is equated in Richard’s statement with the equally disdainful prospect of an urban lifestyle. Richard went on to describe how during this period of working for his father, after they’d been tracking a lion all day, his father left him approximately five hours from the vehicle, and asked him to walk the client back to it. His father followed at a distance while Richard negotiated, among other things, a breeding herd of elephants (which are notoriously dangerous with calves present) and navigated his way back to

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the vehicle. Richard felt his father was testing his bush knowhow, and he was proud to demonstrate his competence. Today, he and his father have a good relationship, which is premised very much on their shared passion for the bush. This notion of the bush being a means through which a person can prove their mettle is also evident among women. The British wife of a white Motswana man described her seven day stint completely alone in the bush some months after she moved to Maun: I wanted to spend some time in the bush and [my husband] was applying for his lease on his land, which Batswana are entitled to. So he dropped me off, and I spent seven days there. I don’t think I saw a single person. I used to have to walk about two to three kilometres to get water. There was water right in front, but there were about ten hippos in there, so I did my washing up there, but I didn’t go out in the middle to get [clean] water, you know. I had a little tent in the forest there.

At this point her husband interjected saying: ‘You didn’t even have a tent, babe’. Wife: Well I was in a mosquito net between three trees. Husband: You had a mosquito net, a piece of canvas, a bedroll, a trunk, a stool, some candles. Wife: A trunk with food in it. I absolutely loved it. I really, really loved it. It was so nice. But also, of course, I was quite scared at times. I wasn’t so scared of the walk, but when I would go down and do the washing up, you would have a hippo come up. I got a fright a few times! And I also had hippos walking through the camp once or twice, and elephants came through the camp. Yeah, at times it was intimidating [laughs]. I would sit there playing bongo drums on my water container to try and ward them off, you know.

While the expatriate wife initiated this experience in the spirit of adventure, it had the added advantage of helping her fit into her adopted community. This was through demonstrating her love of the bush, along with the highly valued qualities of independence, resourcefulness and bravery, which are praised in both men and women. Her husband’s interjections emphasising the miniscule goods with which she was equipped demonstrate his pride in her undertaking.

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Cultural Values Derived from Hunting While hunting has directly involved a much smaller proportion of the community in recent years than previously, its impact on white Batswana collective identity and cultural values remains substantial. As anthropologist Jan Dizard (2003: 41) points out, even in cultures where hunting is one of the primary means of food procurement, those who actually go out and hunt remain in the minority. This does not diminish hunting’s significance on the identity of the group as a whole (cf. Plaice 1990: 63–64). Okavango community members celebrate the frontier character of both the natural and social environments, and their cultural values and practices owe much to their hunting history. This is evident in white Batswana’s local vernacular, along with the value placed on: resourcefulness; ‘wild’, alcohol-fuelled lifestyles; a sense of excitement, risk and danger; and anti-materialism, which I now discuss briefly in turn. A key indicator of the cultural significance of hunting is the peppering of white Batswana speech with hunting metaphors and expressions. Luke, for example, talks about ‘tracking its spoor’ whenever he loses something, be it his binoculars or his son. A common colloquialism to confirm that something is correct or to express gratitude is ‘shot’; as in good shot, or spot on. In addition, one of Maun’s popular bars at the time of my fieldwork was called the Buck’n’Hunter. Hunting and animal metaphors appear frequently in conversation, such as in this professional hunter’s description of trying to convince his drunken friend to leave said bar and go home to his furious wife: ‘That was worse than looking for a wounded lioness with a .22, I promise you!’ The use of this kind of language is part of a broader paradigm whereby white Batswana collective identity can be seen as a continuation or re-enactment of the frontier past, in which hunting was a central motif. MacKenzie (1988: 50–51) describes the links between colonial enterprise and hunting: Hunting required all the most virile attributes of the imperial male – courage, endurance, individualism (adaptable to national ends), sportsmanship (combining the moral etiquette of the sportsman with horsemanship and marksmanship), resourcefulness, a mastery of environmental signs, and a knowledge of natural history.

In other words, the hunter is the exemplary frontiersman, and through the act of hunting, an individual performs the kind of frontier values and practices that are so highly valued by the community and which have not weakened with the shift to the postcolony. A further hunting-derived

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value is the celebration of the work hard/ play hard nature of the frontier, which one old hunter described: Sure [Maun] has always had a bit of a wild, rough-and-ready hunter-type atmosphere. Traditionally the hunters are always known to be rambunctious and heavy partiers. Crazy sort of guys in a way: wild and woolly. And I think that’s a huge part of the attraction of hunting. It goes with the lifestyle, and I wouldn’t change it for anything.

A core role of the professional hunter was to entertain his clients and, in this capacity, the telling of stories and consumption of alcohol are central. Drinking has a long association with hunting in many cultural contexts and certainly among the ancient Greeks, where Bacchanalian links were drawn between the wilderness, hunting, meat, blood, alcohol and outlandish social behaviours (Cartmill 1993: 35). That the term ‘wild’ in English relates to both the wilderness and unruly behaviour further demonstrates this link. While the safari I attended involved wine with dinner every night, it was certainly ‘tame’ relative to many other safaris, where stories of wild nights were recounted as enthusiastically as the tales of the day’s hunting. It is important to note, however, that the exploits of hunting and drinking remained discrete activities of day and evening. It was not only illegal, but also considered unethical to hunt while under the influence, and most professional hunters would not have risked their reputations and licences by allowing clients to become intoxicated while hunting. Alcohol consumption was not only a ubiquitous feature of the safari experience, but has become deeply imbued in white Batswana cultural practice. In frontier communities, alcohol has historically been used to stave off boredom and loneliness and to facilitate social interaction, while adding an element of excitement and risk to daily life (Honigmann and Honigmann 1970 in Heath 1987: 30). Maun is notorious for the sociability of its community, and virtually all events involve alcohol. In fact, alcohol is such a key aspect of collective identity that on learning the nature of my research, a number of people suggested, only partly in jest, that alcohol was the defining characteristic of the community. As the young MoNgwaketse woman, Tshepo, puts it: ‘Yeah, people in Maun drink, but it’s not just the black people. The white people drink a lot as well. And you know for me everybody in Maun is the same. They’re all crazy, and that’s why I moved here, because I fit in just alright!’ Tshepo is originally from Gaborone and evident in her statement is the sense that Maun is different from other parts of the country. Across ethnic backgrounds, many of Maun’s residents, particularly those working in hunting

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or photographic tourism, affectionately self-identify as frontier types: a bit ‘crazy’, a bit naughty, and relaxed and lifestyle-oriented. Alcohol both facilitates and symbolises these characteristics. The heavy use of alcohol is one of several valorised risk behaviours, of which hunting perhaps constitutes the epitome. Hunters describe the risk and excitement of the hunt as a major drawcard of the profession (cf. Radder 2005: 1143). June Vendall Clark (1990: 191), whose husband hunted in the Okavango in the 1960s, describes crocodile hunting as difficult and dangerous, where ‘mistakes can be unpleasantly terminal’. She quotes local hunting legend Bobby Wilmot as describing crocodile hunting as exhilarating: ‘It’s always new… However tired I get, however lonely, frightened or desperate I become, it’s always new. Nothing is ever repeated, no two nights are ever the same. It takes you like a fever’ (Vendall Clark 1990: 193). The love of risk in hunting and the excitement dangerous situations elicit provide a primal, visceral thrill to which hunters commonly speak of becoming ‘addicted’. The frontier is seen as an escape from ‘civilised’ society, characterised not only by a sense of risk and potential danger, but also by possibility, freedom and adventure (Davis 2005: 8). In this regard, Maun is said to attract those wishing to escape the confines of urban living. Professional guide Garth Thompson (2001: 31) describes how guiding ‘attracts a number of lost souls, some with drinking problems, broken marriages, or those who can’t hold down a job for long … They seek a job in the bush to get away from all their responsibilities and failures’. This is a rather negative view of some members of the profession, and yet Cedric similarly described the cultural values of Maun’s white community (encompassing both expatriates and citizens) as underpinned by a desire for escapism from the so-called ‘real-world’: With all due respect, the only reason they’re here is because they can’t work anywhere else in the world. That’s just my view point. It’s the last of the places where you can just walk around and just goof off, but that’s a choice, isn’t it? I’m just saying that people that are going to stay here are the ones who just don’t want to go and live, I suppose the word ‘real’ world isn’t a word, there’s no ‘real’ world, but somewhere a bit more regimental. They still like the idea of being able to go and get pissed and then get in a car and drive home. And you can walk around with the same old clothes; I mean you go away for four years, and you come back, and everyone you see will look exactly the same. You’ll think you haven’t walked out of the bar, because you see them sitting there. They’re probably wearing the same clothes, if it’s not the same clothes, they’ll have bought the same version of. You know what I’m saying? That’s how it is.

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The kind of freedom disparaged here by Cedric – freedom of lifestyle, from consumer culture, from heavily regulated societal structures – is integral to the hunting idyll and is one of the most highly valued aspects of Okavango living for most of the white community. On the whole, there are few sanctions placed on community members. In terms of the law, the police are under-resourced and are less interested in minor transgressions, such as drink driving, than in the more serious issues of violent crime occurring in the region. Regarding moral guidance, there is an almost total absence of participation in organised religion, and the community prides itself on being non-judgemental and forgiving of people’s transgressions. The high value placed on freedom from constraints serves to enhance people’s sense of belonging to the Okavango, as they perceive it to be one of the few places in the world where this freedom can be enjoyed. Anti-materialism is another important hunting-derived cultural value that serves as a means to enhance belonging and acceptance from the majority population. While operational, the industry turned over vast profits and was underpinned by huge capital investments, yet hunters themselves engaged in a practice that celebrated going back to basics and engaging with the bush in a fairly unfettered way. While four-wheel-drive vehicles and rifles are certainly expensive commodities, this consumer element was downplayed, as hunters, and particularly their clients, imagined their practice as a fundamental return to nature, far from the trappings of urban consumerism. For professional hunters, six months of the year was spent in the bush with a focus on pursuing animals, and even while this was underpinned by the pursuit of tourist dollars, their day-today lifestyle readily allowed for an anti-materialist idyll to predominate. This bush orientation underpins the anti-materialism felt to characterise white Batswana values more broadly. People in Maun take pride in the fact that the richest person in town will be sitting at the bar drinking alongside everyone else and will be indistinguishable as wealthy to the outsider. As one long-term expatriate put it: ‘It’s like the Wild West here. No one gives a shit what you wear, or what you do, or what you earn’. Instead, people are valued for their conviviality, and their skills and resourcefulness in the bush. Consumer items are not readily available in Maun, limiting socioeconomic stratification based on conspicuous consumption. Shopping for many items requires travel to Francistown or other larger centres in Botswana, or to South Africa. The majority of people, both male and female, at least in their working capacities wear ‘the regular swamp garb of khaki shorts and shirt’ (Vendall Clark 1990: 133). In their leisure time, white Batswana often wear a large square of cloth called a kikoy wrapped around their waist and

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hanging to below the knee with, or without (in the case of men), a T-shirt. People joke that the way to differentiate between a white Motswana and an expat is to check for shoes, which the former seldom wear. The homogeneity of clothing can be seen as a metaphor for the ‘masking or muting of social differentiation’ that Cohen (1982: 17) describes as ‘equalitarianism’. Writing of the Afrikaners living in the adjacent Ghanzi district in the 1970s, Russell and Russell (1979: 43) suggest: This disregard for the appearance of things is a part of culture borne by a community too intimate for conspicuous consumption. Every man’s economic position, like his life history, is known to everyone else, and the lifestyle of the rich resembles closely the lifestyle of the poor.

People’s homes further evidence the lack of ostentatious materialism. Houses tend to be simple and unassuming, and one South African expatriate builder told me that there are only one or two properly constructed houses in all of Maun. Most are cobbled together with many home-made extensions. They tend to have cement floors without finishes, such as carpet, cladding, wallpaper and so forth. This is not to say that people do not take pride in their homes. Yet, rather than expensive furnishings, they expend their energy making beautiful gardens and decorating their houses with African fabrics, woven baskets and the like. That many white Batswana spend at least half of the year in the bush explains in part why homes are not the objects of further investment. The prevalence of theftrelated crime in Maun may also be a contributing factor. In addition, the fact that all land is on leasehold title means that it is not inalienably owned by individuals. Richard’s home exemplifies the lack of materialism evident in many white Batswana homes. His property is not connected to town water, so he collects the meagre annual rainfall in tanks, and otherwise has what he requires delivered by truck. Others illegally pump water from the river. Richard has no hot water, so throughout the year, and even in the brief but chilly winter, he has cold showers. His house is one small brick and cement room in which he has a kitchenette in one end, a bed and some bookshelves in the middle, and a toilet, shower and basin at the other end. He has no television, washing machine, dishwasher or air conditioning, with most white Batswana using fans to keep cool, despite the year-round heat. While Richard could readily earn more money by guiding more safaris each year, he chooses lifestyle above income. His living conditions are very much a matter of choice. He would rather have time to pursue his artwork and a more relaxed pace of life than work the exhausting schedule of back to back safaris. When asked about the difference between the cultural beliefs and practices of white Batswana

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relative to expatriates living in the Okavango, Richard elucidated as follows: ‘I think most of us white Batswana have grown up with a Motswana attitude, which is very relaxed and whatever. People who come here as expats are driven. A lot of them come here because they see an opportunity; they come here to make money’. True to an anti-materialist orientation, white Batswana tend not to make elaborate plans for their future financial security. In an email after I left the field, an expatriate female friend married to a white Motswana wrote to me: one thing my sister picked up on whilst she was here was the fact that us people in Maun seem to be quite penniless, but manage to get by day by day without pensions, assets, something secure for the future. I guess we all live totally in the present, which is quite wonderful really.

Wonderful in youth, but regarding retirement, people can undergo considerable stress when they realise they do not possess sufficient resources to support themselves when they are no longer able to work. Richard says he is more concerned with having a piece of land and a farm to sustain him in his old age than any sort of savings. Of this, he said, ‘I guess we’re like Africans in this respect’. His father depended on hunting for an income, but since the ban has had no formal employment. His father’s wife does not have a paid job either. They do grow lots of vegetables, however, and lead a simple lifestyle. There is a pension for citizens in Botswana, but in 2007 this was only 100 pula (U.S. $20) a month, which was scarcely enough to live on. Sitting with my Maun housemate’s British mother, I listened to a conversation she had with two older white Batswana men. My housemate’s mother asked them what they would do in retirement and whether they had superannuation. They responded that they had not really thought about it, but that they had no pensions and no children. The following conversation proceeded amidst much laughter: Man A: But I’m 54 years old, you know, I’ve got nothing! I’ve got a car. Man B: A piece of shit like mine! Man A: So I have to start sorting out my future, financially. You know, I don’t want to be on the street like a bum. Man B: I have seven hundred pula in the bank. Can that be helpful? Man A: Well I’ve got a little bit more than you. I’ve got a thousand pula! [Great laughter].

A thousand pula was at the time equivalent to approximately U.S. $200, so a miniscule amount of savings for people of their age. While the great

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laughter ties in with the kind of live in the moment, risk-taking culture, there is genuine apprehension among ageing people who have not ‘made a plan’ for the future, so to speak. Months later I raised the issue with Man A, and he told me that he regretted not securing more land when he was younger upon which to build and rent out houses to pay for his retirement. This lack of provision for retirement is, however, counterbalanced by the demographic feature of a much smaller greying population in Maun than in developed nations, and older community members tend to be provided for by family, friends and community members when in need. White Batswana’s relative lack of materialism can be interpreted as a way of keeping a low profile in a region where poverty persists among a considerable portion of the population. Whites are somewhat paradoxically welcomed, but also resented by the broader Batswana population, on account of their association with economic privilege. Owing to the great inequities in the distribution of wealth in the decades following the discovery of diamonds, individual achievement and accumulation of wealth have led to resentment, suspicion and anger among many Batswana, who traditionally associate such individual accumulation with greed and selfishness, which in turn endangers kagiso (Gulbrandsen 2012: 284). Tourists to the Okavango, and hunting clients particularly, represent the global elite and pay exorbitant fees for their Okavango safaris. These take place in a region where remote area dwellers suffer extreme, entrenched poverty. Through eschewing conspicuous consumption, and through identification as anti-materialist, white Batswana, whether consciously or coincidentally, distinguish themselves from the Batswana elite, tourists and the white expatriate population and avoid, to an extent, such associations.

Hunting, Relationships to Land and Conservation One of the most pronounced cultural values stemming from white Batswana’s hunting history is their relationship to the land. There is an extensive literature describing the colonial paradigm of white settlers taming, transforming and destroying the African landscape through eradicating wildlife, clearing indigenous vegetation, and building dams and other infrastructure in order to make way for introduced livestock and crops (e.g., Hughes 2006; Darian-Smith, Gunner and Nuttall 1996; Carruthers 1995). This same literature describes a sense of alienation of early settlers from African landscapes, which were considered harsh, daunting and inhospitable. By contrast, white Batswana’s conservation

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ethic and strong connections to the land have, I contend, developed largely as a result of their hunting heritage. Manipulation of the environment occurs to a far lesser extent in hunting relative to agriculture. While hunters obviously impact the environment through the individual animals killed, they reap their livelihoods from the indigenous fauna and flora, rather than transforming the land through the importation of foreign crops and livestock. In this way, hunting has directly contributed to the deep emplacement of this community within the local environment. In making this point, it is not my intention to set up a moralistic binary between hunting and agriculture. In the colonial period throughout southern Africa, massive destruction of wildlife was facilitated not only to aid the development of agriculture and pastoralism, but also in the pursuit of profit through the sale of ivory, skins, furs, horns, feathers and meat (MacKenzie 1988). While this destruction was facilitated predominantly by those hunting for trade in wildlife products, trophy hunters have also had some impact. Furthermore, some of the long-established white Batswana families have had pastoral interests that they have pursued alongside hunting, so they have not in all cases seen the two practices as incompatible. The point I wish to emphasise, rather, is that hunting has centrally informed white Batswana’s relationship to place. According to hunters, their work requires a broad set of skills in relation to the bush, including: an ability to orientate themselves in the vast concessions; knowledge of diverse aspects of the ecosystem (as the prevalence of a type of vegetation, for example, will indicate which animal species may be present); knowledge of animal behaviour when under duress; a highly developed sense of instinct, often referred to as a ‘sixth sense’; and the ability to remain calm and act appropriately in moments of danger. This set of knowledge, skills and qualities – all highly valued by white Batswana broadly – are generally perceived as requiring an autochthonous relationship to the environment, in the experiential sense, to be fully developed. In this vein, in describing embodied knowledge of hunters in Borneo, Puri (2005: 22) suggests that many of the skills required for hunting cannot be explained verbally, but must be learned through the body from early childhood. This is a type of ‘tacit knowledge, which appears to accumulate without deliberate intention or much effort’ (Puri 2005: ix). Tony says that hunting is ‘in the blood’, as he derives from a hunting family and has hunted from early childhood. He describes as invaluable the years he spent as a child dodging elephant and backtracking from lion, while shooting birds for the pot with his brother. Similarly, Deon, the Afrikaner professional hunter from Ghanzi, responded to my question as to how he learnt to hunt by (concisely) saying: ‘Grew up with it; born a hunter’. Deon’s comments reiterate Tony’s views that hunting is

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a sort of innate knowledge intrinsic to being born a Motswana, which is honed while growing up in the bush. This is much the same as the photographic safari guides, who suggest their role as guides is who they are more so than what they do. The bush-dwelling lifestyle is the most commonly stated motivation for pursuing a career as a professional hunter, whose work entails intimate knowledge of the natural environment. Professional hunters believe that their practice facilitates a unique relationship with the bush, allowing people to become an active part of an ecosystem, rather than engaging with it solely as an observer. Marvin (2000: 109) describes how the land in which people hunt becomes ‘a sacred space of deep emotional significance and social and cultural resonance’. He goes on to say: The performance of hunting – often continued for hundreds of years – in this space imbues it with a sense of sensual and experiential qualities that become enriched with each hunting event. The memories are of what has or has not happened there before; the present excitement is one of potential, what might occur and what experience it will generate. (Marvin 2000: 109)

This certainly holds true for white Batswana hunters. The 500,000 hectare concession in which the safari described took place is known intimately by Tony. There are two camps on the concession and he spent much time at one as a child while his father guided safaris. The other camp Tony refers to as ‘his baby’. He built it, was the first manager/hunter and has led safaris from there for fourteen years. He says that if he was dropped anywhere in the concession blindfolded he could within half an hour know exactly where he was. He knows the location of every pan, forest, island and permanent waterway and described to the Texan clients the environmental history of the area, including the changes that have occurred with the flood’s movements from year to year. For Tony, the land is imbued with deep meaning; every corner of the concession evokes so many memories, stories and histories that it is a place of enormous personal significance. Such a relationship to land has fostered concern for the ongoing health of the ecosystem. Indeed, sport hunters have been some of the first conservationists in Africa, as elsewhere. This was the case in the Okavango where, on observing the impact of over-hunting, certain white professional hunters worked closely with the BaTawana Chief and kgotla to ensure a breeding sanctuary for animals through the establishment of the Moremi Game Reserve. As described by Bolaane (2005: 248), ‘the architects of the Moremi Wildlife Reserve had all been involved in hunting

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wildlife. They comprised a loose network that crossed the racial divide, and were aware of the importance of game to the economy of Maun’. This is not to say that all hunters were supportive of the move, however, and one elderly community member involved in the reserve’s establishment described falling out over the issue with his brother, who wished to secure this prime wildlife area as a safari concession. The conservationists won out in the end and the Moremi Game Reserve was established in 1963. The type of conservation advocated by hunters is a consumptive one, where individuals of a species are killed, while the species as a whole is protected. This is in contrast to the preservation ideal espoused within the dominant discourse of the global environmental movement, which is based on a belief in the inherent value of nature for its own sake, and in the value of each individual animal’s life. The policy of sustainable utilisation consequently places hunting in a position of fundamental incongruity with such preservation ideals where, according to Slater (1996: 117), ‘the wilderness’s most salient characteristic is its lack of direct utility’. Yet, as Franklin (1999: 123–34) argues, ‘far from opposing the hunters to the environmentalists, it makes far more sense to see them as an opposed form of environmentalism’. It is interesting to note that while critics accuse trophy hunters of hypocrisy in their efforts towards environmental protection, hunting and a conservation ethic are not seen as contradictory among traditional hunting and gathering peoples, such as the Bushmen, who are romanticised as epitomising a wise usage, environmental caretaker approach. In the contemporary period white Batswana hunters continue to defend their practice on the basis of its contribution to conservation (see Gressier 2014a). Hunting has provided huge revenues for the Department of Wildlife and National Parks, which has profited from licence, trophy and daily concession fees, as well as importation of weapons taxes from each client, amounting to millions of pula each year. To this end, a frequently articulated pro-hunting mantra in the Okavango is that hunters ‘pay for conservation’. The high revenues have allowed hunting outfitters to lease vast concessions that have remained in a relatively natural state, rather than being turned over to pastoral activities involving environmental transformation. Indeed, ecologists have demonstrated that hunting has more than doubled the amount of land in sub-Saharan Africa set aside for conservation purposes (Lindsey, Roulet and Romanach 2007: 462). In his extensive study of Botswana’s wildlife sector, environmental economist Jonathan Barnes (2001: 148) concluded years before its institution that a ban on safari hunting would have a profoundly detrimental effect on conservation:

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[T]he exclusion of consumptive use would result in a drop of 74% in the amount of land required by the wildlife sector, and an 81% drop in the amount of land required for community-based wildlife use. This means that a large proportion of the wildlife estate would have no wildlife use value in the event of a ban on consumptive wildlife use.

While the full implications of the ban remain to be seen, these figures demonstrate the scale of the impact expected for both remote communities dependent upon the industry and the environment. There is an assumption in this line of argument that setting aside land for wildlife conservation is an unquestionable good. Pastoralism is dismissed as environmentally damaging, and its significance as the traditional mainstay of Batswana livelihoods passed over. Some research suggests, however, that traditional land management systems were closely attuned to environmental requirements in the Okavango and allowed for sustainable management of pastoral activities (Magole 2009b: 618). Traditional systems took into account seasonal variation and had the flexibility to alter patterns contingent on changing conditions and challenges, such as drought or excessive flooding (Magole 2009b: 622). Generally speaking, Mbaiwa (2002: 113) argues that natural resources were used sustainably by the people of Ngamiland historically, as there were low population densities in conjunction with religious beliefs and cultural customs preventing misuse. He points out that it was European guns and trade that were the catalysts for many of the environmental issues seen today.

Connection to Batswana through Hunting Tensions over land use between pastoralists and hunters are at times drawn along racial lines, and I now turn to the ambiguous relationships forged for white Batswana through hunting with citizens of various other ethnic backgrounds. Throughout Africa, most ethnic and cultural groups have extensive histories of hunting, whether for food, trade, status, tribute, sport, medicine, religion or as a rite of passage. Even for Botswana’s most dedicated pastoralists, hunting has played a role. Gulbrandsen (1993b: 559) describes, for example, how hunting for meat in the wildlife-rich Kalahari allowed the BaNgwaketse to increase their cattle wealth, as the herd was not diminished in fulfilling the community’s protein needs. Game meat was a resource drawn upon especially in times of hardship, such as during droughts (Morton and Hitchcock 2013: 18). Beyond meat procured, the Tswana elite augmented their wealth

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and power substantially through control over the lucrative hunting trade, particularly in ivory, hides and ostrich feathers (Morton and Hitchcock 2013: 16). The historical centrality of hunting in Botswana was apparent in the pre-2014 ban legislation, whereby citizens needed only to purchase the appropriate licences in order to hunt and did not need any form of accreditation to demonstrate capability. In this lay the implicit assumption that all Batswana are hunters. Indeed, ‘Botswana is probably the only country in Africa where hunting [was] a traditional right rather than a privilege’ (Peake 2006: 60; see also Morton and Hitchcock 2013: 18). In northern Botswana particularly, owing to the high densities of wildlife, all the diverse ethnic groups have been involved in hunting in one form or another, as game not only provides a ready resource, but, through its presence, renders the keeping of domestic livestock difficult on account of disease transmission and predation from wildlife. In addition, the soil quality is poor, posing challenges for crop cultivation. This centrality of hunting within Botswana’s history makes the recent ban all the more surprising and controversial for many citizens. While subsistence hunting has a long history in the region, the safari hunting industry was developed in accordance with the East African model, which derived many of its values and practices from the long history of British sport hunting. Since its inception, the industry has been dominated by white citizens and expatriates, with more than 90 per cent of professional hunters operating at the time of my research being of European descent. Prior to the sixties, the racialised nature of the industry was blatantly evident in company names. One outfitter, for example, was called ‘White Hunters’, but changed its name to ‘Botswana Hunters’ at Independence in 1966. Along with the racialised nature of the vocation, the role of the professional hunter developed in a particular nexus of class-determined behaviour in the British tradition. Sport hunting in Britain and its colonies has traditionally been the domain of the upper echelons of society. East African safaris epitomised this paradigm, with British royalty and U.S. presidents adding their prestige to the practice, while authors such as Ernest Hemingway (1954 [1936], 1999) and Robert Ruark (1954, 1966) immortalised these times through their prolific writings. ‘By the 1930s, the safari had become an international institution, the most glamorous and glittering example of empire as a system of outdoor recreation for the upper classes’ (Steinhart 2006: 9). Somewhat paradoxically, even while they value the egalitarian nature of their own community, the elite tradition of the great white hunter retains cultural currency among white Batswana hunters. Professional hunters in Africa are expected to be gentlemen, being valued as much as companions and entertainers, as for their hunting prowess. Tony explained:

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In America, the guys that take people out hunting generally are very rough people, not well educated, but they know the bush. Here, generally you’ll find all your professional hunters will be well-educated, well-versed, welltravelled and can sit and talk about all kinds of topics.

The association of the safari hunting industry with white elites has had ambiguous implications for white belonging. On the one hand, it has linked white hunters to an often mythologised high-class tradition that both white Batswana hunters and their international clients hold in the highest esteem. The high cost of hunting safaris in Botswana has made it a highly exclusive sport, while hosting some of the world’s wealthiest people has given hunters a great sense of worth. On the other hand, increasing antagonisms have developed in recent years among the broader Batswana community, who view the industry as elitist with a small number of whites making large profits to the exclusion of the majority population. In 2007, when I asked a white Motswana hunting concession holder if he had experienced any antitrophy hunting sentiment from the broader community, he responded: ‘No, no. Local people have got no problems with hunting, 99 per cent of the local people. It’s been part of their life for thousands of years’. Conflating these two very different forms, this concessionaire was adamant that the long history of subsistence hunting ensured acceptance of the contemporary safari industry. Yet, in light of the government’s 2014 ban, the comment has proved to be unfoundedly optimistic and rather naive. Of the Batswana I spoke with between 2006 and 2008 who were not working in the industry, the majority were staunchly against safari hunting, while being supportive of subsistence hunting. A MoTawana woman in her late thirties responded to my question of her view of trophy hunting as follows: I hate it. I hate it, okay. First of all I hate it because I love wildlife. I don’t mind hunting on a subsistence level for food, you know, but just for fun? I don’t think it’s right. And even if they talk about: “It creates job, it creates what, what”. Most of this money just goes to the white community, and most of them don’t even appreciate blacks, you know what I mean?

Many more Batswana with whom I spoke saw subsistence and trophy hunting as entirely separate issues, and they similarly critiqued the safari hunting industry on the grounds of its unequivocal domination by whites. Other white Batswana are well aware of the broader community’s perceptions and are also critical of the industry in this regard. This is evident in the following comment of a white Motswana in his late forties in an

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email from 2012 regarding the government moves at the time towards bringing an end to safari hunting: [The hunters] have contributed to part of the downfall. Both photographic and hunting groups have not assimilated enough local standing and credibility into their enterprises. The way I see it, this may be a warning to the photographic side … This is Africa, and not named “black Africa” for nothing. Any elite white minority is doomed to failure here – you either, quite rightly, share the benefits of where you live equally, or get nowhere at the end of the day … Raping of a nation is still rife amongst us African whites. We are still deep-rooted products of colonialism in all its forms. So, when action/progress/equality is deemed to be insignificantly slow by the powers that be, urgent steps are taken to re-dress these perceived inadequacies.

A sense of precariousness vis-à-vis the majority population is clear in this statement, as is considerable reflexivity concerning white appropriation of resources in the postcolonial period. This white Motswana recognises that the tourism industry has been complacent about its responsibilities in facilitating local engagement and suggests that this is at least partially responsible for the hunting industry’s demise. Prior to the ban, negativity towards the industry from the broader community stemmed considerably from the inaccessibility of participation. Professional hunters worked on contract and only for the six-month duration of the hunting season. It was not a salaried job and professional hunters were effectively self-employed. They had to possess their own vehicles, employ their own staff (usually two trackers, or a driver and a tracker) and, to be financially successful, were required to secure clients for themselves by travelling to hunting conventions in the United States and Europe. One professional hunter estimated that he had spent approximately 350,000 pula (U.S. $70,000) to get his small business up and running. This requirement for start up capital precluded a great number of Batswana from entering the industry. The non-white community most interested and involved in the hunting industry has always been the Bushmen, yet they continue to be the most disadvantaged group in the nation, and their participation in the industry has predominantly been as trackers, drivers and camp staff. Their history of alienation and disadvantage has led to a situation whereby very few Bushmen have had the resources to become professional hunters. Negative attitudes towards the safari hunting industry tend to be held predominantly by elite and middle-class Batswana. For those who have worked in the industry and depended on it for their incomes, it

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has, unsurprisingly, been seen in a different light. On a day-to-day level, shared experiences of hunting between those from different ethnic backgrounds have been most evident in the relationships between professional hunters and trackers. Many trackers derive from the various Bushmen groups residing in the villages of Khwai, Sankuyo, Mababe and Gudikwa. The relationships between individual professional hunters and their trackers have varied, yet common to this connection is a deeply entrenched class hierarchy. Coming from remote and often impoverished communities, trackers have tended to have minimal formal education and limited English-language proficiency. Thus, despite their phenomenal bush knowledge, their lack of English has often precluded them from developing close connections with clients. Consequently, the relationship between trackers and professional hunters has been one of mutual dependence, where each has brought different skills, responsibilities and capacities to the industry, and where each has taken very different benefits out of it. Magole (2009a: 606) describes the historic exploitation of the Bushmen in such arrangements, where: both the colonial administration and Botswana society, in particular the Tswana groups, have exploited San knowledge and labour for free or at minimal cost. In modern-day Botswana, the San are commonly engaged as cattle herders because they know the bush. The tourism sector, in particular the hunting fraternity, engage the San men as guides, trackers and skinners. Again their labour is not compensated adequately.

Notwithstanding these issues, positive relationships commonly develop between professional hunters and trackers. During hunting season, hunters and trackers are constant companions for six solid months, and these relationships, in most cases, continue over many years. On the safari I participated in, the relationship between Tony and his tracker and driver was often that of a friendly camaraderie, within the employer/employee nexus. On most days, during rest time, Tony would leave the clients and chat socially (in Setswana) for long periods with the tracker and driver. Yet, at other times the hierarchical nature of the relationship came to the fore when Tony would get frustrated, particularly with the driver, and would reprimand him for mistakes made. The relationship between professional hunters and trackers has tended to be characterised by a kind of paternalistic care. Writing of the Zimbabwean context, Pilossof (2012: 167) critiques paternalism through arguing that its inherently stratified nature renders it incompatible with any eventual achievement of equality. The same has largely been true of the relationships between professional hunters and trackers where

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there has been little scope for trackers to advance their careers. However, within these inherently unequal structures has tended to be a strong ethic of care between individuals. The sense of responsibility professional hunters feel for their trackers is evident in the following anecdote concerning a white Motswana professional hunter, who was flown many years ago to Johannesburg with a bout of near-fatal sleeping sickness. His son described his father’s disorientation caused by the illness: ‘One time he was sort of running through the ward handing out cheques, because he thought that his trackers had been destitute, and had been left out because he was no longer there, and he was trying to say to people, “Help them! Here’s some money”’. Tony similarly demonstrates a high level of care for his driver and tracker. In 2007, during Botswana’s off-season, he contracted a hunt in Mozambique. Although he hired local trackers who knew the area, he paid for his Batswana tracker and driver to accompany him, as they had never previously left Botswana. After the hunt, Tony took them to the coast for a few days of relaxation, where they experienced the ocean for the first time and particularly enjoyed the seafood. Based on his stories of the trip, Tony appeared to have taken as much pleasure in providing this opportunity for his staff, as they did in experiencing it.

Hunting and Community Development The safari hunting industry has had both negative and positive impacts on the various Bushmen groups in the region. The high revenues earned by government via the commercial trophy hunting industry were of central consideration within the development of the unified hunting regulations in 1979, which had disastrous implications for subsistence hunters. Changes included restrictions relating to the methods of hunting permitted, with many traditional Bushmen methods outlawed as cruel, and the allocation of government-determined hunting quotas for each species (Magole 2009a). Special Game Licences were established for subsistence hunting, but even these were of limited availability and were eventually suspended in 1986 owing to (unsubstantiated) claims of abuse (Mbaiwa, Ngwenya and Kgathi 2008: 164). The bureaucratisation of hunting rendered necessary the carrying of a licence even for subsistence practice, and these various changes amalgamated to make hunting ‘an enterprise of peril and proto-criminality for the San and the illiterate rural poor in general’ (Good 1993: 212). While safari hunting was party to Bushmen’s historical alienation, in recent years it has brought great benefits to certain communities. In response to the poverty faced by the Bushmen and others identified by

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the government as remote area dwellers, and in accordance with the global shift towards community-involved conservation initiatives, in 1989 the government instituted the Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) programme. As described in the previous chapter, under its auspices, communities were encouraged to form Community Based Organisations (CBOs), which were then eligible to apply to utilise or sell wildlife quotas. In addition, they could apply to lease Controlled Hunting Areas (CHAs) within which to conduct photographic and hunting safaris. While some have operated safaris themselves, many others have chosen to enter joint management arrangements with hunting outfitters through subleasing their CHAs and selling their governmentapportioned hunting quotas to safari companies. Despite significant problems in the implementation and management of CBNRM, research has demonstrated that a number of communities have reaped significant benefits from their partnerships with hunters (Rihoy and Maguranyanga 2010; Novelli, Barnes and Humavindu 2006; Biesele 2006: 139; Thakadu et al. 2005; Kgathi et al. 2004; Mbaiwa 2004, 2002). The industry has provided jobs for considerable numbers of remote area villagers, many of whom have held no previous paid employment. The driver and tracker on the hunting safari I participated in, for example, were from the small village of Khwai in the heart of the Okavango. Both had minimal formal education and neither had been employed prior to working with Tony. As formal sector employment is strongly desired by many remote area dwellers, a significant positive outcome of the hunting industry has been a reduction in both welfare dependency and urban migration, through providing a means for people to continue to live in their home regions (Bolaane 2004: 406). In addition to employment, monies from hunting have been invested in education scholarships, payment of household dividends, sanitation facilities for households, the purchase of land cruisers, provision of funds for funeral expenses, building projects and the purchase of recreational goods. Another benefit is that game meat has been given to community trusts for distribution, which has reduced poaching. The very direct benefits from hunting have led to positive attitudes to tourism and wildlife conservation among these communities, who have previously (and some would argue, unjustly) been accused of environmental destruction (Lindsey, Roulet and Romanach 2007: 462; Thakadu et al. 2005: 32). These positive community outcomes derived from hunting have been a very important part of professional hunters’ sense that their practice is beneficial, and they frequently defend the industry on these grounds. Community development based around the hunting industry has not been without its problems, however. The programme has targeted

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communities living in wildlife rich areas, leading to great resentment among other communities in the region, such as Shorobe, that have been excluded from participation altogether (Mbaiwa, Ngwenya and Kgathi 2008: 165). For those admitted into the programme, issues have included the fact that employment for remote area dwellers has primarily been in lower skilled, lower paid positions. Safari companies have enjoyed the bulk of profits, as remote communities have tended not to have sufficient experience and confidence to move away from joint partnerships to full management. Safari companies have at times been accused of dishonest dealings with communities and engaging in unethical practices, such as hunting more animals than they have had on licence, while factions within communities have been responsible for misappropriation of funds (Rihoy and Maguranyanga 2010). There has also been insufficient autonomy of communities in decision making, where they have had no say, for example, in determining quotas within their concessions (Mbaiwa 2005a: 159). Moreover, through choosing to sell their hunting quotas rather than utilising them themselves, communities have developed dependence on the market economy rather than direct subsistence from the land. Citizen hunting licences above and beyond community quotas have previously been available to those with sufficient funds, yet licence fees and the complicated application processes have rendered these inaccessible for many. In other words, there has been a major cultural shift from hunting animals to hunting tourist dollars, with the concomitant shift in skills and values. Despite these issues, the general consensus is that CBNRM has made a significant positive impact on remote communities. On these grounds, Thakadu et al. (2005: 36) argue that: ‘the contribution from CBNRM to rural livelihoods such as those of Sankuyo indicates that the global campaign against safari hunting should not be applied indiscriminately without due consideration of particular cases in different parts of the world’. With the government’s 2014 total hunting ban, these most impoverished remote communities find themselves once again dependent on government welfare, with few livelihood options. Living in wildlife zones, they are forbidden to keep most livestock species, and they are now denied the right to engage in either subsistence or safari hunting activities. In Botswana’s most recent State of the Nation Address (GoB 2013, point 47) the President claims: Government is fully cognizant of the effect that the ban will have on community based organisations that have been benefitting from hunting in the past. Efforts are therefore underway to prepare the affected communities

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for sustainable non-consumptive utilisation of their resources, through the development of management plans.

As many of the former hunting concessions are in areas considered peripheral and undesirable to photographic safari operators, these efforts may bear little fruit. At the time of writing, several of these hunting concessions were being put out to tender for the third time, with no photographic outfits expressing interest. As the government has indicated that it plans to keep these areas in wildlife zoning, how this land will be used remains to be seen.

Conclusion Belonging through Hunting Hunting has been central to the identity, culture and economy of the Okavango’s white population, from the initial incentive it provided for white exploration and settlement, to the lucrative trophy hunting industry of recent years. Notwithstanding the current ban, hunting’s role in white Batswana experiential autochthony through its facilitation of their regional emplacement has historically been of the greatest significance. On a basic level, it has provided a fulfilling vocation that has allowed people to earn an income with the bush-based lifestyles they so desire. It has provided a link to the past and a sense of collective identity between community members. The practice has been a powerful means of developing enduring connections between family and community members; most particularly between fathers and sons. Many of the cultural patterns and values dominant in the community today have their origins in hunting culture; not least the propensity to celebrate wild lifestyles characterised by heavy drinking and the seeking of risk and excitement. Hunting can also be seen as a re-enactment of the frontier, with its emphasis on initiative, bravery, self-sufficiency and the outdoors. Moreover, hunting has had a strong influence on white Batswana relationships with the natural environment, which are characterised by: an intimate and formidable knowledge of the Okavango and its flora and fauna; a deep emotional connection to land; a sense of legitimate human presence within the natural world; and a strong conservation ethic. In relation to the broader community, while a shared history of hunting and a positive impact on remote community development enhances connections, the perceived racialised and elitist nature of the trophy hunting industry has been the cause of considerable consternation. Increasing

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anti-hunting sentiment within the local, national and international communities has placed professional hunters in a precarious position in recent years, culminating in the loss of their livelihoods with the 2014 total hunting ban. I returned to the Okavango in late 2012, when the government’s intentions were already clear. The response of white Batswana hunters was illuminating. Rather than the outrage I anticipated, most seemed to accept the decision resignedly and were in the process of seeking other forms of employment, many in the photographic safari industry. Frustration was expressed regarding the perceived lack of consultation by government, and fears were articulated concerning a predicted rise in uncontrolled poaching in areas no longer managed by hunting outfitters, but for the most part people seemed to take the ban in their stride without excessive anger or despair. This accords with the ‘make a plan’ mentality of white Batswana, who mobilise their resourcefulness in dealing with unanticipated developments in life. In this vein, and consistent with their general insistence on their legitimate place within the nation, for the most part there seemed to be little concern that the ban might indicate any threat to the broader position of white citizens in Botswana. Through the lens of political autochthony, where mechanisms of exclusion are commonly enacted by dominant groups, a ban on a predominantly white industry by the black majority may readily be perceived as a threat to the position of the former. The email cited above describing Africa’s majority populations taking ‘urgent steps … to re-dress’ neo-colonial behaviours was an exception, however, with the majority of people with whom I spoke viewing the ban as unrelated to interracial issues. The strength of white Batswana’s sense of belonging explains their refusal to make such a connection, which is supported by government rhetoric that downplays ethnicity as a determining factor in society’s operation. It is to this discourse that I now turn.

Chapter 4

Belonging and the Nation K I vividly remember crossing the border from South Africa into Botswana in early 2007 with Charlotte, a white Motswana woman born and raised in the Okavango. It was baking hot and, like bureaucrats the world over, the Motswana woman at immigration appeared bored and resentful of the travellers disturbing her reveries. Ignoring my greeting, and without looking up, she scanned my residency permit, stamped my Australian passport and reached out for the passport of my companion. When she saw it was a Botswana passport held by a white woman, her face broke into a big smile, she greeted Charlotte, and they proceeded to have a warm conversation in Setswana. Over the course of my fieldwork, I witnessed this kind of warmth between black and white citizens on numerous occasions. It is not that there is any great animosity shown to other white people, quite the contrary as a rule. It is more to do with the fact that Batswana tend to be highly patriotic and deeply subscribe to notions of the imagined community within nationalist discourses. Shared citizenship is thus mobilised in certain circumstances as a unifying mechanism. In addition, while white tourists and expatriates cross the Botswana borders in significant numbers, there are relatively very few white Batswana. Their small number, in conjunction with a sense of shared citizenship, experiences, histories and language, tend to lead the majority Batswana to treat their white compatriots with considerable warmth. Such positive sentiments, however, do not necessarily equate to a belief that white citizens are as authentic Batswana as those deriving from the eight Tswana ethnic groups. The state and nationalist discourses play a central role in determining the possibility of belonging for minority groups. Renowned white

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South African novelist Nadine Gordimer (1988b [1959]: 32) argues that belonging to the nation and its communities requires two dimensions: on the one hand, the individual or group must have a desire to belong and, on the other, they must be accepted as belonging by the majority. In previous chapters I have argued that the strong desire of white Batswana to belong is evident in the ways in which their culture emphasises localised, emplaced identities and strong connections to the natural environment. In this chapter I begin to look at the other side of Gordimer’s belonging equation. I suggest that on the level of policy, the state has provided the foundations for a sense of legitimate emplacement and a strong sense of belonging among white citizens. While this provides the legal and economic means for full participation in Botswana society, the Tswanacentric nationalism has a somewhat ambiguous impact on white citizen belonging. Informed by her work on the Herero minority in Botswana, Durham (2002: 139) argues that the ‘most profound, lasting, and pervasive reality of postcolonial subjectivity in Africa is surely [a] sense of uncertainty’. With this in mind, I argue that the insecurity evident in being a non-Tswana minority has motivated white Batswana’s frequently articulated love, loyalty and patriotism to Botswana, which can be read as a means to enhance senses of connection. This chapter is divided into three sections. Firstly, I describe how Botswana’s somewhat paradoxical policies of civic citizenship, on the one hand, and the practice of minority incorporation into Tswana merafe, on the other, have tended to disenfranchise most minority groups, while benefiting white citizens. To demonstrate this, I contrast the Wayeyi’s experience of incorporation into the Tawana morafe with that of white citizens. While particular minorities fare differently under these systems, the situation clearly shows that limits to full belonging continue to be drawn at the boundaries of ethnicity, and I suggest that this results in a certain level of ontological insecurity for white citizens, despite their relative privilege. In the second section, I outline the nation’s history and the divergent claims of the various ethnic groups to legitimacy within discourses of political autochthony. Finally, I describe the significance of citizenship within white Batswana identities, in order to argue that the strident claims to belonging articulated by white Batswana have in large part been made possible by the policies and practices of the Botswana state.

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Civic Citizenship in Botswana Botswana’s politico-legal system provides the framework in which inclusive belonging is, in theory, made possible for all citizens. Botswana prides itself as a state committed to non-racialism with a strong emphasis on civic, rather than ethnic, citizenship. This contrasts with certain other African countries where political parties are constituted patently along ethnic lines. Botswana’s Constitution instated at Independence in 1966 guarantees the: ‘Protection of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms of the Individual … whatever his [sic] race, place of origin, political opinions, colour, creed or sex’ (cited in Saugestad 2001: 28). As a newly formed nation bordering apartheid South Africa this was, as Saugestad (2001: 28) suggests, ‘a courageous and visionary statement’. This policy was not only oppositional to the explicitly race-determined societal hierarchies of apartheid South Africa, but was also an antidote to potentially detrimental tribalism. It is defended to this day on the latter score with situations such as Rwanda’s civil war being held up as evidence that ethnically based politics are dangerous. Francis Nyamnjoh (2006: 230), who has written extensively on the politics of belonging in several African nations, describes in Botswana, ‘new, more flexible, negotiated, cosmopolitan and popular forms of citizenship, with the emphasis on inclusion, conviviality and the celebration of difference’. While Botswana may compare favourably with its neighbours, both its distant and recent history have certainly not been void of inter-ethnic tensions, with discrimination and inequality plaguing social relations. The reality of civic citizenship is that it is often characterised by forced assimilation into ‘a public, political culture that is represented as universal and, as such, is oblivious of its own culturalness’ (Ceuppens and Geschiere 2005: 399). In this paradigm, while putatively concerned with the rights of all individuals regardless of ethnicity, post-Independence nationalist discourse has inextricably linked the demarcated territory with the culture, politics and language of the politically dominant Tswana. Inherent to the nation-building project is the imperative to develop means of ensuring national cohesion through shared symbols and the promotion of a unified identity. This must be balanced with the acceptance of diversity. In recent times the balance has been found wanting, with minority advocates claiming that the emphasis on the individual within the civic citizenship model has been detrimental to those minorities whose particular histories have left them socially and economically disadvantaged. These groups feel they require positive discrimination and rights as collectivities. In the absence of such rights, some minority group members ‘increasingly see themselves more as subjects than citizens’ (Nyamnjoh

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2006: 82). Consequently, in recent years, minority rights have become a major political issue in Botswana.

Incorporation of Minorities into the Tawana Morafe The nation’s regional organisation is predicated upon practices within precolonial Tswana social organisation. Tswana merafe have traditionally been heterogeneous, incorporating divergent ethnic, cultural and linguistic groups into their multi-ethnic society, albeit within fairly rigid hierarchies of status and power. Within this system, individuals from minority ethnicities are incorporated into and politically identified with one of the eight Tswana merafe. The Tawana morafe incorporates all citizens in Ngamiland as BaTawana, regardless of their ethnic background. The Bushmen, Wayeyi and BaKgalagadi of Ngamiland lived in ‘small-scale, stateless societies’ prior to the BaTawana’s establishment in the region (Tlou 1977: 371). The BaTawana invited these groups to join their morafe during the reign of Kgosi Letsholathebe I (from 1847–74). ‘When they refused, he seized their cattle, goats, and sheep’, and these communities were in this way involuntarily incorporated into the Tawana state (Tlou 1977: 377). Stratification was deeply imbued in BaTawana traditional society, with Tawana royals enjoying the highest status, while immigrants were variously ranked below all BaTawana commoners, who ‘as a group received better treatment than the subject communities’ (Tlou 1974: 61). At the very bottom of the hierarchy, some members of the Wayeyi were conscripted as Batlhanka, hereditary serfs, while a number of BaKgalagadi and Bushmen entered relationships of clientship with wealthy and powerful BaTawana. Vividly exemplifying the kind of treatment suffered by Batlhanka was the practice of BaTawana hunters travelling on horseback, while forcing their Wayeyi serfs to run alongside carrying calabashes of water in case the hunters wished to drink (Nyati-Ramahobo 2002b: 688). Good (1993) describes similarly abhorrent treatment of the Bushmen and argues that Tswana wealth and success is the direct result of the servitude of others, where free labour allowed the Tswana to build cattle herds and engage in trade, wage labour and politics, while members of other ethnic groups performed their domestic work, herding and farm labour. As a consequence of such treatment, discrimination and stigmatisation have led to the internalisation of shame among some subject communities, who have in turn been party to the suppression of their own identities, languages and cultural expression through speaking Setswana and claiming Tswana identities (Nyati-Ramahobo 2002b: 689). Today, while serfdom has in theory been abolished, the government’s refusal to set a minimum

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wage for farm workers, as one example, leads to the continued exploitation of Bushmen and other impoverished minorities (Good 2008: 113). Not all minority individuals were in positions of subjugation, however, and the Tawana system allowed for certain groups and individuals to enjoy considerable power. The Herero, a pastoral people like the BaTawana, are one such case and were permitted to live in their own wards. ‘The immigrants ran their affairs according to their own customs as long as they remained loyal to the king, paid tribute, and performed public works’ (Tlou 1974: 60). Within other non-royal Tawana wards, headmen have hailed from a variety of ethnic backgrounds (Bolaane 2005: 248). The numerical dominance of the Wayeyi has resulted in over 50 per cent of the region’s headmen deriving from this ethnic community (Nyati-Ramahobo 2002b: 701). This has not, however, translated into collective rights for the Wayeyi, who have been engaged in a long struggle against the subordinate status attributed to them by the BaTawana. Since the 1930s the Wayeyi have been formally advocating for: their own dikgotla; freedom of cultural and linguistic expression; representation by their own elected chiefs within regional and national politics; and land and inheritance rights (Nyati-Ramahobo 2002b). Nyati-Ramahobo (2002b) points out that the stakes are high in such claims, as Wayeyi’s traditional lands in the Okavango are of great value owing to tourism and agricultural potential. Yet, under the current system of BaTawana governance, the land the matrilineal Wayeyi have managed to secure is subject to BaTawana cultural norms of patrilineal descent, thus in disputes over inheritance taken to the BaTawana-governed kgotla, rulings are likely to contravene Wayeyi custom (Solway 2011: 221). In 1995, advocacy efforts were reinvigorated and the Wayeyi formed the Kamanakao (meaning ‘remnants’) Association, which, in addition to facilitating cultural projects, led to the identification of ambitions for greater political recognition. After installing a Paramount Chief – despite the defiance of Kgosi Tawana, who refused to relinquish his claim as Chief of all residents in the Ngamiland district – the Wayeyi began to advocate for inclusion of their Paramount Chief in the national government advisory body, the House of Chiefs, which until that time had been constituted solely by the eight Tswana paramount chiefs. In order to do so, they mounted a legal challenge to the validity of Sections 77, 78 and 79 of the Constitution. The High Court eventually ruled that these sections were, indeed, discriminatory and unconstitutional. This was seen as a major victory for all minorities, who in the wake of these events formed a coalition, Reteng (meaning ‘we are here’), to collectively represent their interests. In response to the High Court’s ruling, the government set up a Presidential Commission of Inquiry into Sections

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77–79 of the Constitution. The Balopi Commission, as it came to be known, found a pervasive sense of subordination and desire for change among minorities, while the Tswana were, unsurprisingly, largely supportive of the status quo. The government initially appeared open to amending the Constitution and the rules for membership of the House of Chiefs – which it somewhat tokenistically undertook to rename Ntlo ya Kgosi, meaning ‘House of Chiefs’ in Setswana – before a backlash among the Tswana elite ensured their privileged position was upheld. This was through maintaining ex officio membership of the eight Tswana paramount chiefs, while ‘remaining members were to be elected from geographically zoned areas, virtually all of which were ethnically mixed’, and were subject to five yearly elections (Gulbrandsen 2012: 218). In addition, land remains administered under the eight Tswana tribal land boards. Consequently, the eight Tswana groups continue to maintain the unique privilege of collective and permanent representation at both the national and regional levels. While the Wayeyi are yet to realise all their goals, the position of minorities has improved considerably. The government has conceded the need to address the minority situation, as demonstrated by their development of a National Policy on Culture in 2001. While the policy opens up a space for cultural diversity through the sponsorship of cultural performances, it fails to meet the more substantive minority demands for mother tongue primary education and the use of minority languages in state media. Thus, while the state is open to celebrating culture, ‘it has also trivialized it and turned it into a consumable’, and as a consequence has stripped it of its political potency (Solway 2011: 238–39). Yet, the policy’s development is at least a step in the right direction, as is the inclusion of chiefs from ‘geographically zoned areas’, allowing at least some minority voices to be heard in the Ntlo ya Kgosi. In addition, the extensive media coverage of the Balopi Commission and the CKGR court cases has brought minority issues to the centre of public interest. This has resulted in a new sense of confidence among previously stigmatised groups. Solway (1994) describes a shift among the BaKgalagadi, for example, from claiming Tswana identity to proudly embracing their own language and heritage. In contrast to virtually all other minorities, white Batswana are not seeking any rights relating to their cultural identity on a public level. This is because the same sociopolitical system seen as so detrimental to other minorities is fundamental to furnishing white Batswana with a sense of legitimacy. Botswana’s official language is English, while the national language is Setswana, with minority languages relegated to the private sphere. While this obviously puts minority groups at a significant

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disadvantage, the white minority as English – and, more often than not, Setswana – speakers are benefitted. Further contributing to their sense of legitimacy is the fact that English is seen as a neutral medium in opposition to Setswana, which is associated by some minorities with cultural repression (Gulbrandsen 2012: 215). In addition, incorporation into the BaTawana morafe is experienced by whites as providing a very positive sense of regional emplacement. While the Wayeyi see the practice as limiting their rights to a distinct collective identity, a number of white Batswana proudly identify as Tawana. This is through initiation into a regiment, which Richard undertook at age seventeen: Kgosi Tawana got elected as the new Chief and, when that happens, the new Chief recruits regiments … We were invited to come and have mophato, which is the initiation lashes, which happen at the kgotla. So anyway, it was an incredible privilege. My Dad had it; my Dad was invited as well with the first President. And basically you arrive there, and you’ve got to go into the sacred kraal at the kgotla. You take your shirt off, and you lie on the ground on your belly, and the guy stands at your head, and he’s got this long, thin, whippy stick, and he did, it’s just two lashes … And then I’m part of a mophato [regiment] of the BaTawana tribe. So, ja, you can’t become much more of a tribesman than that.

Despite not having been called upon to serve his regiment since, Richard’s initiation serves as a powerful symbol of belonging. Writing of the Zimbabwean context, Hughes (2006: 271) suggests that ‘whites – although undeniably cosmopolitan – yearn for a parochial identity’. Initiation into the BaTawana provides this most localised of identities and is perceived by white citizens as evidence of their acceptance by the region’s dominant group. Particularly pertinent is the era in which Richard’s father was initiated. A white Motswana man described his recollection of the time: I remember at Independence … a lot of the white people were given the choice of becoming Batswana in the true sense of the word; not just having citizenship, but joining the tribe, you know. And they all had to get lashed, because the custom is that if you’re the same age as the new Chief who is coming into power, you have to get lashed to basically say, he was your friend, but you now realise his authority. So, I remember a bunch of white people, in order to become proper BaTawana, going out and getting lashed.

The 1960s in southern Africa were a time of great racial division, with South Africa in the throes of apartheid, and violent independence struggles raging

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in the neighbouring nations that were eventually to become Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia and Mozambique. The symbolic submission of white citizens to the Chief in the political climate of this era evidences the very different racial dynamics in northwest Botswana at the time. Gordimer (1988b [1959]: 32–33) argues that belonging requires acceptance not merely on the level of citizenship and economic participation, but also in terms of emotional connections. The Motswana man just quoted describes initiation as facilitating identity as ‘Batswana in the true sense’, beyond legal citizenship to a deeper belonging to the Tawana people and territory. These regional identities are very significant for white citizens. Although Afrikaans-speaking Deon loves the Okavango, he says one day he will move back to the region of his birth and upbringing: My heart will never leave the Kalahari. It’s not just the Kalahari; I must say it’s the Bushmen as well. They brought me up. Naro is the first language I ever spoke in my life. It’s the only language that I can speak completely fluently. There’s not one word that I do not understand.

Another white Motswana who has been living for fifteen years in the Okavango still refers to himself as MoNgwato, as he was born and lived in Serowe until his adulthood. The Okavango’s white Batswana similarly identify first and foremost with the Ngamiland region and its people. While it is clear that such localised identities are of great significance to white Batswana belonging, it is also interesting to consider the motivations of such actions from the BaTawana perspective. Gulbrandsen (2012: 62) describes Tswana traditional governance as characterised by hegemonic rule ‘exercised in a wide range of social relationships through which dominant Tswana, often by means of subtle and tacit discriminatory measures, prevented minorities from rising against their overlords’ (Gulbrandsen 2012: 63). The co-option of potentially powerful minorities into the Tswana hierarchy is a key measure supporting their ongoing dominance. One example of this practice is the inclusion by Seretse Khama – Botswana’s first President – of Kalanga leaders into his inner circle. Through their participation at the centre, the Kalanga have in a Foucauldian fashion ‘internalized and reinforced’ state policy and practice (Gulbrandsen 2012: 123). This has proved a highly successful strategy in regard to the Kalanga, who have shown Khama and the BDP great loyalty over the years. Such co-option not only tightly controls potentially divisive others, but conveniently bolsters government claims to non-tribalism through having minority representatives in high-level positions.

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As with the Kalanga, the white minority in Ngamiland have historically been a relatively wealthy and powerful group, rendering it logical for the BaTawana to attempt to harness their resources, and nullify possible dissent, through their inclusion into the morafe and its regiments. Like the Kalanga, white Batswana have internalised nationalist discourses to the greatest extent and demonstrate deep commitment to the nation, evidencing the success of Tswana co-option strategies. The Wayeyi are a somewhat different case, yet, despite the lowly status they are attributed by the BaTawana, they have always been a potentially divisive force considering their numerical dominance. Tlou (1977: 379) suggests that it was for this reason the BaTawana forbade them the establishment of their own wards (which was permitted for the Kgalagadi and Herero). In addition, for the BaTawana pastoralists, the Wayeyi were a useful community to co-opt as ‘[t]hey were expert cultivators of the floodplain, innovative fishermen, and skilful canoeists who, in effect, operated the transportation system of the delta. Thus, access to grain, fish, and transport was through them’ (Tlou 1977: 381). The success in terms of political neutralisation of those Wayeyi co-opted into the Tawana system has been demonstrated by the fact that Wayeyi headmen, despite being in a position of leadership, have uniformly avoided playing any role in the fight for Wayeyi empowerment and separation from Tawana dikgotla ‘out of fear of victimisation’ (Nyati-Ramahobo 2002b: 701). Those co-opted into the Tawana system have been unprepared to risk their positions through minority activism, evidencing the effectiveness of political incorporation as a unification strategy.

Insecurity within White Batswana Belonging While white Batswana benefit from many of the Tswana sociopolitical structures, their position within the nation is by no means unproblematic. While their claims to belonging are accepted as legitimate by some, there is a sense that theirs is a somewhat less authentic connection than that of other Batswana. Whites in Africa do not neatly align with what Yuval-Davis (2004: 222) describes as the ‘holy trinity’ of people – territory – state. Intrinsic to nationalist discourses in most postcolonial nations is, unsurprisingly, anti-colonialist sentiment, and in such discourses autochthonous status tends to be attributed on the basis of race. As a direct colonial legacy, the racialisation of space is particularly pertinent in southern Africa, as Sylvain (2005: 357) observes:

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Essentialist conceptions of national culture assume a discomforting salience in postapartheid southern Africa, where conflated notions of ‘culture’ and ‘race’ have been politicized as natural, territorial national units more explicitly and consequentially than in most other areas of the world.

With authentic belonging premised so strongly in Africa on a postcolonial inversion of the racial categories constructed by colonial powers, whites in this schema are automatically excluded from autochthonous status in most postcolonial African nations. This was reflected in the language of the newly independent state: ‘In 1964, just at the end of the colonial era, the total of foreigners in Maun was 102. At the time “foreigner” meant non-black’ (Dziewiecka 1996: 137). Conversely, the most common referent for black Batswana used by white citizens in the contemporary period is ‘local’ people. Inherent in this designation is an implicit acknowledgement that African-derived Batswana are more local than they. One white Motswana man in his late forties, who traces his family tree to apartheid South Africa, expressed in an interview considerable insecurity regarding his ontological status: ‘Am I ever going to really be a true African? No, I’m not. Very simple, politics won’t allow me that privilege’. He spoke further of the ‘burden of guilt’ that his ancestors left him through their role in the apartheid regime. Another white Motswana woman in her forties described her anxiety about the broader southern African situation: I’m a little bit worried about southern Africa, I really am. I think that there is a lot of resentment, black on white resentment, in southern Africa. I don’t think it’s dying down, I think if anything it’s growing. Mugabe hasn’t helped. Thabo Mbeki hasn’t helped. I think another nail in the coffin of the relationship between white and black people in southern Africa is going to come when Mandela dies. I think that a lot of it is just with respect to him: the fact that he could turn the other cheek after the shit he went through and then afterwards come out and say “let’s do this all together”. It would be disrespectful for African leaders to become more anti-white while he is alive, because if anybody has the right to be antiwhite, it is him.

She went on to say that she believes white people create a lot of the negative resentment though their own behaviour. She also suggested that the social hardships being faced currently in Botswana, particularly with the devastating impacts of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, have resulted in people looking for scapegoats for their problems, with the white community an obvious choice.

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While this woman and the man described above carry some sense of culpability and concern regarding the history and contemporary position of white people in southern Africa, many other white Batswana distance themselves from the politics of whiteness on account of Botswana’s history as a protectorate and not a full colony. Such a divergence of views is also present within some individuals. In conversations about the position of whites in Africa generally, and Botswana specifically, the same people in different conversations expressed contradictory views, ranging from supreme confidence to deep insecurity. This accords with Miller’s (2003b: 415) observation that belonging is not necessarily a coherent set of relationships between people and place, but rather a complex, layered and at times seemingly contradictory pastiche of connectedness and insecurity. She argues against a singular model of belonging through suggesting that connections formed by settler communities premised on disjuncture are equally valid forms of belonging (Miller 2003b: 415). Even for those white Batswana for whom moments of insecurity are infrequent, there is certainly awareness that they are not considered as authentically Batswana as other citizens. MoNgwaketse woman Tshepo expresses a perception of white Batswana that she believes is commonly held by Batswana: ‘Obviously they are from Botswana and are entitled to all, but they also respect the fact that there’s a Motswana-Motswana, and the best way to get anything and to get by is communication and working with those people’. Citizenship only goes so far and the Batswana of the eight Tswana merafe are constructed as ‘Motswana-Motswana’: the most authentic citizens. For white Batswana, their physical appearance is a constant signifier of their non-African heritage that not only labels them as non-Tswana and foreigners, but also connects them with the continent’s egregious colonial history. Consequently, explicit in Tshepo’s statement is the sense that, in the postcolony, white citizen belonging is contingent on ongoing positive connections with the majority population. This belief supports Crowley’s (1999: 25) assertion that ‘those who do not belong to the people may be admitted on sufferance, as guests, subject to good behaviour’. White Batswana’s constantly articulated claims to Botswana’s exceptionalism in terms of positive interracial relationships suggest an awareness that their admittance to the nation is, to some extent, conditional.

Constructing History and Debating Autochthony Throughout Africa, discourses of autochthony permeate citizenship rights, ensuring that those deemed ‘native’ are benefited, while ‘strangers’

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are excluded (Hickey 2007: 83). Accordingly, the stakes of autochthony are high and the construction of history contentious. The concept of indigeneity has long been applied to the first peoples of settler societies in the Americas, New Zealand, Australia and elsewhere. The conceptualisation of certain African groups as indigenous has been much more recent and controversial, with many states holding firm to the position that all citizens are indigenous. The histories of frequent migration that have resulted from military conquest by either local or colonial powers have led to significant contestation surrounding claims to territorial precedence in African territories (Mamdani 2001: 658). It was only in the late 1980s that certain African communities began to stake claims to indigeneity through United Nations forums. Consequently, Hodgson (2009: 22) describes the inclusion of these minorities in the 2007 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which was signed by virtually all African states, as a stunning victory. She continues: But their very success in establishing international recognition produced backlash at the national level, as some African states, wary of the validity and potential divisiveness of the claims and desperate to protect their already fragile sovereignty, challenged these new relational and structural definitions of “indigenous” with recourse to older, more essentialist definitions predicated on the historical experiences of “first peoples” in Australia, the Americas, and elsewhere. (Hodgson 2009: 23)

This has certainly been the case in Botswana, where despite the state being a signatory to the declaration, ongoing hostility has been expressed towards the Bushmen’s claims to a unique indigenous status. In the following section I outline the varying constructions of history and the criteria through which Botswana’s various ethnic groups stake claims to political autochthony.

Autochthony and State Building The state tends to be the most powerful player in shaping discourses of belonging, not least through possessing the resources and infrastructure to promote its version of history (Marshall-Fratani 2007: 32). In Africa, where politics often run along ethnic lines, the pattern has been that state-forming ethnic groups have been able to stake claims to autochthony and its attendant rights, while non-state-forming groups are denied such opportunities. This is the case in Botswana where Tswana belonging based on state-formation has unequivocally superseded Bushmen claims

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based on length of residency. The Tswana settled in the region only in the late eighteenth century, while the Bushmen have lived continuously in the area for tens of thousands of years. Despite the length of their residency, Bushmen claims to a unique indigenous status are denied, and in 1993, the United Nations ‘Year of Indigenous Peoples’, Butale, then Minister of Local Government, Lands and Housing, stated in parliament that no plans for the event had been made: ‘This is because, as far as we are concerned, all Batswana are indigenous to the country, except those who may have acquired citizenship by registration’ (cited in Saugestad 2001: 52). In this statement is the foregrounding of the individual within the civic citizenship model, epitomising the rhetoric of individualised autochthony in terms of Zenker’s (2011) typology. This mode of thinking was still current at the time of my fieldwork, with President Festus Mogae making similar assertions to the Botswana press agency in 2007 (cited in Barnard 2010: 75). As Good (2008: 109) rightly points out, the denial of the Bushmen’s unique indigenous status is significant beyond symbolic recognition, as such a status ‘embraces a range of important human rights and the international conventions and agencies supporting them’. This discourse describing all citizens as indigenous is inadvertently beneficial to white Batswana, as it opens up the possibility for recognition of autochthony based simply on citizenship. Of the Botswana state’s discourse in this regard, Gulbrandsen (2012: 195) observes that: ‘there are no traces in this rhetoric of blood, descent and kinship. Instead there is … a strong emphasis upon the postcolonial state as nonracist, antitribal, liberal and thus highly inclusive, also encompassing all white citizens’. Furthermore, Botswana’s nationalist discourse emphasises the recent past of the post-Independence period from 1966 onward, which has proved so triumphant for the fledgling nation with its rapid economic growth based on the discovery of diamonds. This emphasis again benefits white Batswana through effectively erasing the history of inequality and white privilege of protectorate times. As the transition to Independence was peaceful, and no major past atrocities of scale are memorialised, the colonial period rarely features in public discourse. This is very different to neighbouring South Africa and Zimbabwe, whose ruling parties, the ANC and Zanu-PF respectively, continually reinforce their own legitimacy through reference to their role in overthrowing colonial regimes. Reflecting on her position as a liberal white South African, Gordimer (1988b [1959]: 32) writes: ‘We want merely to be ordinary members of a multi-coloured, any-coloured society, freed both of the privileges and the guilt of the white sins of our fathers’. While most white Batswana do not associate their history with colonial ‘sins’ as such, there is a conscious distancing from the histories of white privilege that pervaded southern

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Africa. Thus unlike most minorities in Botswana that are engaged in the politics of recognition, the white community embrace the opportunity to understate their ethno-histories in order to be citizens as any other. Unlike some white South African Afrikaners who mourn the end of the ‘golden age’ of white rule (Verwey and Quayle 2012: 570), and white Zimbabwean farmers who identify with and express strong nostalgia for colonial Rhodesia (Pilossof 2012: 198), white Batswana identify strongly with the independent state. The emphasis on the recent history of the nation is also salient for white Batswana belonging in the sense of downplaying any notion of their being newcomers. As mentioned, the Bushmen inhabited the Okavango area for tens of thousands of years prior to the arrival of the Wayeyi around the middle of the eighteenth century. The politically dominant BaTawana settled in the region around 1800, and Europeans began to enter the area just fifty years later (Tlou 1985: 28). With the exception of the Bushmen minority, all the various ethnic groups have, therefore, been relatively recent settlers. This has a significant impact on white Batswana belonging, as they do not feel they were temporally far behind. There are a small number of Maun families who trace their family trees back to times before Maun was even established as the regional capital. One elderly white Motswana describes his grandfather’s arrival in Botswana in the late 1800s for the purpose of trade. Both sides of his family lived in the former Tawana centre in Tsau before moving across to Maun when it was made the capital. He described his family history from the period: About 1924–25 they were looking at coming to establish the capital in Maun. It was a village; it wasn’t what it is. From Tsau they moved across to Maun. My late Dad was very influential in establishing the kgotla where it is now. It’s never moved … So anyway they settled here, and then my Dad built a house where I’m staying here at the moment, about 500 metres from here, along the river. Built in 1927, we’ve stayed in the same house. We haven’t changed. We’ve kept it as, like a sort of a heritage place. And I was born in 1929. Right there, just across there [pointing], and we’ve been here ever since. So our family are fifth generation.

The length of his family’s history in the area, in conjunction with his family’s role in the establishment of the kgotla, clearly provides a deep sense of emplacement in the region. Most white families are, however, much more recent arrivals, and census data from 1921 states that only fifty Europeans resided in Ngamiland at the time (Dziewiecka 1996:7). Interestingly, while those whose provenance extends into protectorate days claim autochthonous ties through length of residency, more recently

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arrived white families articulate a sense of legitimacy on a political level through distancing themselves from any colonial association on the basis of their post-Independence migration.

White Batswana Claims to Legitimacy vis-à-vis National History The protectorate years are not perceived as a cause of shame for most white Batswana, who construct their nation’s history with certain emphases that serve to enhance a sense of legitimacy in belonging. I asked Richard to describe the history of white settlers in the Okavango, and his rejection of the notion of being a ‘settler’ is clear: The thing about what’s different here is that Botswana was never a colony; it was a protectorate, okay. The only settlers as such were Ghanzi people really, which was another South African attempt to start settling Botswana. With Seretse Khama, that’s what changed everything about this country’s attitude towards white people, because he married a white woman, and he said, “from now on we will always be a racially tolerant country”, which is so unique among African countries. I think most people here consider themselves part of this country. It is forty years old, this country. It’s just started. So I think more than from a settler point of view, the people are just from here, they’re part of it. You know, I find it’s amazing because if you take all the HaMbukushu up in the north and you speak to them – when I had those meetings at the kgotla with them – they said to me: “So how long have you been here?” So I said, “Motswana, I was born here”. “Okay, how long was your father here?” “No, he came here in 1959 or 1958”. So, “oh ok”, because he’s been here longer than they have, they’re from Angola, you see. So we’re immediately regarded as Motswanas through and through. And the thing is, essentially all the tribes in Botswana have come from somewhere, so we’re all settlers.

Richard’s comments are contradicted by Tshepo’s claim that there are true ‘Motswana-Motswanas’, but even though others may not recognise white Batswana status, Richard certainly lacks no confidence in his place in the nation. Miller (2003a: 218) argues that belonging requires ‘standing in correct relation to one’s community, one’s history, and one’s locality’. It is clear from Richard’s understanding of history that he feels white citizens have a legitimate place in Botswana. In the New Zealand context, Bell (2009) describes much more tentative assertions of belonging among

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young settler-descendant adults, who feel they lack a unique culture and express insecurity in light of what they see as superior Maori connections to place. By contrast, Richard denies any sense of insecurity and articulates a much less problematic sense of belonging. Histories of land appropriation are central to the colonial experience and ongoing interracial tensions in most of southern Africa (see Chapter One). Yet, unlike the south-east regions of Botswana and neighbouring nations, no land was allocated to white families in the Okavango. Rather, land remained under tribal administration – as it does to this day – and white citizens, like all Batswana, lease land from tribal authorities that are today represented by the Tawana Land Board. Thus the term settler, with its connotations of appropriation of land, is seen by the Okavango’s white Batswana as inaccurately representing their position. On the politics surrounding land in Botswana, Richard commented: No one fought for it. No one fought to defend it, and no one fought to take it over. It was more just a sort of coming together, you know. Black people were here, they came from up there. Bushmen were already here. White people arrived. No white people came here and claimed the land. It was all done officially through the processes, through the official land programme. And it’s also so young, people don’t have claims to land from years ago, and most of the land claims are written up.

I challenged this version of history through mention of the disenfranchised Bushmen, to which he responded: That’s probably the only group that’s been left out of the whole programme. Botswana’s completely different from anywhere. This is a totally pacifist culture, people would rather sit down and drink and talk about problems than fight over them … Botswana’s barely … there are tribes, but there’s good intertribal relationships … It’s different, hey.

While Richard sanitises some aspects of the nation’s history, Bechuanaland certainly suffered far less violent contestation over land than surrounding nations. The British government saw little economic value in the area and so made no moves to colonise the country during the imperial heyday. The Tswana chiefs, however, were nervous about Afrikaner incursions from South Africa, as well as Cecil Rhodes’ plans for land acquisition in the region, and so travelled to London where they requested and attained protectorate status under Britain in 1885. ‘Administering the Bechuanaland Protectorate was, therefore, from a British point of view, an obligation with few rewards’ (Bennett 2002: 7). Bennett (2002: 7) describes Botswana’s colonial powers as a ‘tiny, poorly-funded and

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lethargic administration’ with a skeletal colonial staff and a small budget. Britain’s lack of engagement was epitomised by the fact that the capital and administrative centre was actually out of the country in Mafeking in South Africa. British influence was thus relatively minimal, and the Tswana paramount chiefs maintained and in many cases augmented their powers through administering the protectorate. According to Gulbrandsen (2012: 64), on account of the minimal presence of the British colonials, ‘the peoples of the Bechuanaland Protectorate did not develop any strong notion of colonial power as repressive’. With the British presence, Afrikaner attempts at invasion into the region were stifled peaceably without a single shot being fired, and Botswana has managed to remain free to this day of the violence and warfare that has been so detrimental to other African nations. Despite the minimal colonial impact relative to neighbouring nations, administrators of the British protectorate exercised certain controls reminiscent of wide-ranging colonialism. These included the imposition of taxation, regulation of the powers of the chiefs and some appropriation of land in the south-east and west of the country (Campbell 1980: 231). While not as pervasive as in neighbouring nations, a sense of white superiority was also present in Bechuanaland. According to Hall (1973: 197): African welfare was subordinated to European interests in British Bechuanaland, not because of shortage of funds or fear of European opposition, but rather because the officials shared local white attitudes on such issues as white supremacy, the status of Africans in local society, and the future development of South Africa. For this reason imperial rule in British Bechuanaland fell short of the expectations of those who advocated imperial rule in order to protect Africans from the consequences of European expansion.

While such accounts indicate that Bechuanaland was not immune to the arrogance and racism that characterised British colonial administrations, settlers were very few in number, resulting in the majority of Bechuanaland’s African population having little contact with Europeans, and so remaining for the most part minimally affected by the protectorate. This was not all for the good, however, as the colonial lethargy was responsible for the fact that at Independence Botswana ‘ranked among the twenty-five poorest countries in the world, in lack of the most basic infrastructure’, and with a domestic population possessing very minimal formal education (Gulbrandsen 2012: 104). The impact of the British administration was felt even less strongly in the remote north-west. It was not until 1894 – almost a decade after

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the south – that the north-west was brought under the protectorate’s purview. Both before and during the protectorate years, the malarial environment and the ravages of the tsetse fly, which causes sleeping sickness (trypanosomiasis) in humans and nagana in cattle, discouraged Europeans moving into the Okavango area (Bolaane 2005: 244; Tlou 1985: 98). The population of white residents in the colonial period in the Okavango was, as a consequence, tiny. As mentioned, in 1921 the census recorded fifty Europeans living in the Okavango, and in 1936 this number had risen to a mere ninety-seven (cited in Dziewiecka 1996: 70, 85). Historical sources attest to the fact that both prior to and during the protectorate period, Europeans living in the Okavango were subject to the control of the BaTawana chiefs regarding many issues, including access to land and hunting rights (Dziewiecka 1996: 71; Gulbrandsen 1993a; Tlou 1985: 77). Moreover, the Okavango is described in several accounts as one of the few places on the continent where interracial integration occurred during the colonial period (Dziewiecka 1996: 131; Vendall Clark 1990: 229; Gordimer 1988a [1970]; on Serowe see Head 1981: 55–57). Bolaane (2005: 244) suggests that ‘Maun’s social life was not typical of southern Africa’, and describes Riley’s, the town’s only hotel/bar at the time, as one of the few multiracial bars in southern Africa. Similarly, renowned coloured author Bessie Head (1981: 70) fled apartheid South Africa for refuge in Botswana. She describes the sense of dignity and self-respect amongst even those lowest in the social strata in Botswana, which she attributes to an absence of demoralising colonialism. Botswana’s white citizens are quick to point out such relatively positive aspects of their nation’s history, and the story they recount plays a significant role in allowing a sense of legitimacy in their current position within the nation.

The Significance of Citizenship Along with constructions of the nation’s history, white Batswana’s status as citizens is at the forefront of their identity and sense of belonging. Under the nation-state model broadly, citizenship is of vast significance, as it determines people’s access or denial to a number of fundamental social and economic rights. Citizens of Botswana have the privilege of residing in a country free of war, with a strong economy and a stable political system. Citizens enjoy the right to political participation, impunity from deportation, and rights to land, services and government assistance. Such rights cannot be taken for granted in many parts of Africa, and through considering the position of those without permits, the benefits and security concomitant with citizenship become clear. As a relatively

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prosperous nation, bordered by countries with resounding levels of poverty and social unrest, citizens of Botswana tend to jealously guard their borders and are highly selective concerning who they allow to share in the privileges of citizenship (Nyamnjoh 2006: 13). This has been patently evident in the past decade, where the many thousands of people who have crossed Botswana’s eastern borders have been promptly deported back to Zimbabwe, with little concern expressed for their experiences of persecution and/or poverty. Levels of xenophobia in the general public, and efforts to patrol borders, have increased commensurately with the numbers of people attempting to enter Botswana (Nyamnjoh 2006: 101). This paradigm raises issues for the large expatriate community in the Okavango. Yet, as Nyamnjoh (2006: 231–32) describes broadly in southern Africa, ‘the general public have been overly critical of black migrants from the rest of Africa, while remaining overly generous towards white migrants from Europe’. Despite being in a better position than their African counterparts, those whites in Botswana who are long-term residents, but do not hold either permanent residency or citizenship, feel very uneasy about their status in Botswana. To be eligible to apply for citizenship an individual must, among other requirements, be prepared to revoke all other citizenships; be able to speak the national language, Setswana; and are required to have spent at least ten consecutive years living in the country (Nyamnjoh 2006: 83). One white expatriate woman, now in her sixties, came to Maun in 1967 as a 17-year-old to escape apartheid, which she strongly opposed in her native South Africa. After forty years of working in the Okavango as a documentary film-maker and a photographic safari guide, she has a deep sense of emplacement in the region. She was given a plot of land in Maun by the Chief in the late sixties, where she built her house. When I visited her there, she proudly showed me all the trees she has planted over the years. She has strong ties with the local BaTawana and Wayeyi communities – although she is relatively reclusive in the white community – and describes having contributed much to the local villagers in terms of health care provision and Englishlanguage teaching on a voluntary basis. She speaks with pride of the local safari guides she meets in the bush who she has helped attain the skills to secure their guide’s licences. She has a very strong sense of belonging in relation to both the social and physical environments and yet, without formal citizenship, this can be taken away at any moment. Her insecurity is patent: I feel desperate about my own situation because now it’s all swung back at me, where I didn’t become a citizen when I could have so easily in ’67. I’d just run away from politics, it was the last thing I had on my mind …

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And it is going to come up in the next four months. So, ja, it’s very, very nerve wracking. I don’t know what I’ll do, and where I’ll go [if not awarded citizenship].

She lives her life in a fine balance between belonging and insecurity. Despite her strong ties to the local community, she has a tenuous connection to the nation state. She is by choice peripheral to the white community, yet is deeply emplaced and totally at home in the natural environment. If she were asked to leave, it would not only be a huge pragmatic challenge, but also a deeply emotional one. She went on to say: ‘I think there’s a magic about Botswana. It’s just a feeling that I’ve always had that I never belonged anywhere else from the time I arrived. And I think that the way the government has handled everything has been quite incredible. I think they are a very stable country’. She is one of many expatriates struggling to attain citizenship within the highly restrictive system in a climate of increasing xenophobia.

Citizen Rights in Botswana By contrast, those whites with citizenship enjoy much greater ontological security, along with a host of rights and privileges. While they may not be considered as unequivocally Batswana as the ethnic Tswana, the state’s policy of civic citizenship allows white Batswana to participate fully in the nation’s economic life, suffering little, if any, negative discrimination on account of their whiteness. As discussed in Chapter One, citizenship furnishes white Batswana with rights to land. Based on the traditional Tswana three-tiered land use system, all Batswana, including white citizens, are entitled to lease a residential plot, ploughing lands and a cattle post, and they pay only administrative costs to the tribal authority, the Tawana Land Board, for the privilege. In addition, they are able to access government assistance, such as Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA) loans, to establish businesses. This is very different to the situation in neighbouring South Africa, for example, where affirmative action programmes have the express aim of redressing histories of white privilege and race-based discrimination through ensuring black South Africans are provided exclusive opportunities in education and employment (Alexander 2007: 210). In a conversation with Richard regarding his experience of looking for help with the development of his business, he was effusive in his praise of the government and the support he has been provided. I probed him further, asking whether he

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believed citizen empowerment is really aimed at helping Tswana people. He replied: I think you’ve got an equal favouring as a white person. As far as I know [he lists several white Batswana families], all sorts of people have had huge CEDA loans to get their companies going. I know if I go and apply, my colour would definitely not be discriminated against with me getting a loan.

Significantly, Durham (2002: 152) similarly received strong denials from her Herero interlocutors when she suggested the possible presence of ethnic privileging within the allocation of government loans and assistance. The Herero, much like the white minority, believe in the existence in Botswana of the ‘unmarked, liberalist individual as citizen’ (Durham 2002: 152). The fact that ethnic discrimination is felt not to be a concern for these particular minorities relates to their relatively privileged position, as social class certainly plays a role in determining access to such schemes. Far from disadvantaging traditionally privileged citizens, Nyamnjoh (2006: 106) describes a ‘strong feeling that the new measures selectively favour rich Batswana and ignore the poor’. Similarly, Gulbrandsen (2012: 126) describes the state ‘setting up a most generous system of distributing resources – financial and technical – to those who [have] sufficient initial resources to enter a spiral of wealth accumulation’. Botswana’s economy, political structures and bureaucracy have been inherited from the British protectorate and reflect Western modes of organisation. The CEDA programme favours those citizens with knowledge of Western business models, formal education and business prowess: a certain amount of entrepreneurial spirit and the skills required to write a convincing business plan are necessary to apply for CEDA funding in the first instance. White Batswana are considerably privileged by their cultural history that furnishes them with the requisite skills, knowledge and values to benefit from such programmes. Mazonde (1991: 455) suggests this has followed a continuum from the colonial to postcolonial period in Botswana, where white families have benefited from programmes, such as CEDA, through their close ties with the state. In protectorate days these connections to the state were through links to the bureaucracy, while in the postcolonial period they tend to be through professional ties (Mazonde 1991: 455). The case of the Okavango supports Draper, Spierenburg and Wel’s (2004: 341) contention that ‘[c]ohesion is mainly found at the level of the elite’ in Africa.

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Political Involvement of White Citizens For those with the requisite knowledge, skills and resources, the civic citizenship model also allows minority individuals the opportunity to engage in the political arena. As one example, Richard Werbner’s (2004) ethnography of the BaKalanga, Botswana’s largest and most politically powerful ethnic minority, details how members from this group have risen to elite standing in both the public and private sectors. Unlike the Kalanga, and despite the putatively inclusive Tswana political system, white citizens do not frequently enter national politics (although, for examples of some who have done, see Werbner 2004: 17). Passing over the political factors underpinning this, the Okavango’s white citizens simply claim they consciously choose to live far from Gaborone, the urban hub of national politics, and as ‘bush people’ have little interest in participating in high-level politics. Indeed, national politics generally seem of little interest to many white Batswana, and I did not often hear conversations surrounding such matters, let alone hear of active engagement. Of Zimbabwean white farmers, Pilossof (2012: 70) argues that an avowedly apolitical stance is central to their attempts to secure a position within the nation. To this end, he suggests they ‘set themselves apart from (and above) the political wrangling of parties and personalities’ (Pilossof 2012: 70). However, this alleged apoliticism in effect signals their support of the government of the day (Pilossof 2012: 71). This is also true of the white Batswana, who, at least until recently, have for the most part tended to passively support the ruling BDP. This is quite a different scenario, however, to an implicit support by whites of the much more controversial Zanu-PF in Zimbabwe. White Batswana’s approval of the BDP is shared with the majority of their compatriots – particularly those dwelling in rural areas – with the party having won great popularity through their bolstering of the wealthy on the one hand, and their welfare provision for the poor, on the other (Gulbrandsen 2012: 282). With the BDP having won every election since Independence, the white Batswana are not alone in exhibiting a lack of political engagement, with around a 40 per cent eligible voter turnout being the norm in recent years (Good 2008: 4). Gulbrandsen (2012: 304) describes a ‘distaste for party politics’ among many in the nation. That said, white Batswana apoliticism certainly does no harm in the sense of keeping a low profile and avoiding ruffling feathers through partisan political engagement. Political participation is in some cases motivated by the desire among historically disadvantaged minority communities to access rights and opportunities for their people. Many of the white Batswana with whom I spoke believe they have sufficient access to power through community

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and business networks, negating the need to formally participate in the political system. Some of the local friends Cedric grew up with are now members of parliament, and he phones them if he has particular concerns. On a related note, Richard commented: You know you can go and sit with the President and talk to him about a problem. I know Ian [Khama, the current President] quite well. It’s just growing up, having been born here. My Dad knows the Khamas very well. And it’s probably one of the most personal countries I think in the world. It’s the kgotla system, which has sustained a lot of that. Botswana’s so small, such a small population working in the upper echelon of the economy, you know. That group of people, I mean everybody knows everybody.

As a professional hunter, who has always subcontracted his services to concessionaires, Richard’s dad is by no means in the upper echelons of the economy in financial terms. Yet, working in tourism tends to provide greater access to government, as ministers visit the Okavango and stay in lodges owned or run by white Batswana. This provides tourism operators with the opportunity to directly address ministers regarding concerns in the region. Far from critiquing the close ties between big business and high-level government officials, white Batswana perceive this access to reflect good governance, and the uniquely intimate nature of the Botswana nation.

White Batswana Relationships to the State As evident in these perceptions, white Batswana tend to hold considerable respect for the government. This was certainly the case in 2006 and 2007, although there is growing criticism of policies instituted by the Khama regime. In 2007, Richard expressed a sentiment widely held at the time, saying: ‘I think we’ve got a very sensible government, and I think that we probably will do for a long time still’. Beyond the central government, however, other arms of state power are viewed with some ambivalence. The police are one such example. On one level, the frontier nature of white Batswana cultural values, where there is a resentment of any restrictions placed on behaviour instituted in legislation, means that the police are seen at times as inhibiting people’s freedom. For example, driving after heavy alcohol consumption is not uncommon and is considered to be reasonably acceptable, so long as people are careful. In late 2006, a short-lived programme of random breath-testing led to a number of white citizens and expatriates being arrested. The police were very

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lenient, however, administering fines rather than summonsing people to court, as legislation requires. A young British expatriate woman was arrested at this time and described how the police were embarrassed to charge a woman with drink driving, and so altered the charge to that of failing to hold a valid Botswana driver’s licence. Similarly, Richard has been apprehended on numerous occasions for speeding or drink driving, but expressed the belief that: ‘people aren’t out to get you. If they catch you doing something wrong, they’ll try and give you the minimal amount of punishment they can’. Perhaps not least because of their leniency, there is a perception that the police are ineffectual. Slow police responses to crime incidences led to the establishment by an expatriate resident in 2001 of a community radio system referred to as ‘911’, which now has several hundred members. Each member has a handheld transceiver radio and, if they are a victim of crime, they can call on the radio and those community members closest to the scene will rush to their aid. The police station also has a ‘911’ radio and so can also respond to calls, despite it being their untimely responses in the past that led to the establishment of the network. The system has been very effective to date, as both a deterrent to crime and in apprehending criminals. Crime is very much on the increase in the Okavango and is of growing concern to all sectors of the community. The experience of vast and rapid social change increases both crime and fear of crime (Comaroff and Comaroff 2004a: 806). The Okavango tourism industry has brought about vast change and great promise, but very selective prosperity, with the gap between rich and poor ever widening. The potential for crime is increased by people of greatly different means living closely side by side, which results in the impoverished desiring the material goods held by the wealthy (Spinks 2001: 8). As a consequence, crime in southern Africa has become ‘a means of production – or, rather, of productive redistribution – for those alienated by new forms of exclusion’ (Comaroff and Comaroff 2004a: 806). While theft is common in Maun, Botswana generally has very low rates of violent crime relative to contiguous African nations. As in most parts of the world, it is the poor who are most often the victims of violent crime, and while whites are certainly targeted in cases of theft due to their relative wealth, they are seldom victims of serious crimes such as rape and murder. Gauging exact statistical information about the prevalence of the white community’s experiences of crime in Maun is problematic, as statistical data on an ethnic basis is not recorded within such data. However, anecdotally, it appears that since 1990, only two white residents of Maun have been murdered, both in incidents of theft, while one white woman was raped (see Davies 2005). My interlocutors describe 2005 as heralding

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a wave of crime, with roughly three or four calls a week to the ‘911’ network regarding home invasions, with more on weekends. In the year I lived in Maun, between 2006 and 2007, there was on average one to three calls a week. There is a sense among many of my interlocutors that crime is pervasive, and as the local newspaper, the Ngami Times, claims: ‘The reality is that crime affects all of us, be it directly or indirectly, and if it hasn’t as yet, it will’ (2007: 2). With the increase in crime, the inadequacy of the police force has been highlighted. The police suffer from a chronic lack of resources, and the local newspaper regularly features articles condemning police failings: Maun, branded in some quarters as a “crime capital”, has been allocated only seven new police recruits … The region has this year endured crimes of rape, assault, burglary and many other cases, some of which are still pending investigation as there is a shortage of staff at the station. (Morokotso 2006: 12)

The article goes on to quote the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Thebayame Tsimako, explaining that only 345 police were being trained annually for the whole country. He is quoted as saying: ‘As you can see, this is a very small number … All that we need to do is learn to compromise, work together and hope all will be fine soon’ (Morokotso 2006: 12). When the police are ‘hoping’ all will be fine, this does not inspire confidence in members of the public. ‘Tsimako also called on members of the public to assist in any possible way, more especially this festive season to curb crime since the police alone cannot cope’ (Morokotso 2006: 12). Not surprisingly, there is a palpable sense of frustration among a broad cross section of Maun residents regarding police effectiveness. The expatriate coordinator of the 911 community radio network described to me police challenges as follows: Look, the police do have a lot of successes, without any doubt. They do catch a hell of a lot of people … But they are totally understaffed, they don’t have the manpower, they don’t have enough vehicles. They are trying their best to try and curtail a lot of this night time criminal activity, because they do have forty officers out every night, which is why you can never get the police during the day, because they’re all sleeping!

Significantly, in the many discussions I had with community members regarding crime, it was evident that expatriates were far more concerned about the issue than citizens. This may in part be on account of the fact that many expatriates derive from South Africa, where violent crime rates are far higher. The World Health Organization indicated that South

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Africa had the highest rate of violent death in the world in 1996 (see Morrell 2001: 20). Their sense of nervousness may consequently be the result of traumatic past experiences, in conjunction with constant exposure to the ‘crime talk’ that is so prevalent in South Africa (Crapanzano 1985: 238). Traumatic crime experiences and the fear of future crime emphasise feelings of alterity among expatriates and disturb their sense of connection to place. White citizens, by contrast, appear to be far less concerned. I asked Tony if there was anywhere at all in Maun where he felt unsafe, to which he responded: I feel safe anywhere and everywhere in Maun. My possessions might not be safe, but I feel safe. I’d walk into any nightclub, any bar, any time. Not a problem. Like often you walk into Bar 2000 or Barney’s Bar just to buy a couple of beers or whatever, ’cause you’ve run out. Generally people are most open and aggressive when they’re drunk. But you can walk into a bar, where you’re one [white person] in 150 [black people] and you never have a problem.

Some white Batswana even feel that home invasions are targeted, with short-term expatriates more often victims than white citizens. One white Motswana man who lives on the outskirts of Maun describes leaving his home open and cars unlocked at all times and never experiencing a problem. By contrast, his expatriate next-door neighbour has been robbed several times. He strongly feels that this is because he has remained aloof from the local community, failing to greet people and refusing to stop the vehicle when people have waved him down for lifts. In such a belief we again see subscription to the notion that belonging is offered to white people subject to their continued ‘good behaviour’ (Crowley 1999: 25). In addition, white Batswana’s refusal to be intimidated by crime exemplifies their determination to minimise factors that might potentially alienate them from belonging.

Nationalism among White Citizens As a result of the sense that Botswana fares better in many measures than neighbouring countries, not least in crime statistics, nationalistic sentiment runs high in Botswana. Despite the criticisms described of the state and its practices, Batswana across the ethnic spectrum tend to be strongly nationalistic. Long-term Maun resident and writer Caitlin Davies (2005: 418) captures such sentiments through comparing her experiences of teaching Batswana students with the challenges posed in unruly British

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classrooms: ‘And I thought about the pride of the students in Botswana, their belief that their country was the best in the world, their ingrained feelings of national identity. They knew who they were and they were proud of it, the students in London did not’. Even among the minority groups most critical of the Tswana, high levels of nationalism are found. The Wayeyi, who are determinedly battling for rights and recognition of their cultural and linguistic distinctiveness, have at no time wished for any sort of succession from the nation. While they do not wish to be subsumed within a BaTawana identity, they do not wish to renounce being Batswana on a national level either (Nyati-Ramahobo 2002a: 20 and 2002b: 694). They, like other minorities, are fighting to participate and be included more centrally within the nation state, rather than desiring to overthrow or secede from it (Gulbrandsen 2012: 222). Werbner (2004: 71) describes how the Kalanga minority’s assertion of belonging is not solely a call for recognition of Kalanga identity, but also a strong statement of Botswana nationalism. A significant population of Kalanga reside in Zimbabwe, and yet the Batswana Kalanga have actively distanced themselves through the promotion of a Batswana-Kalanga dialect. He argues that this is an ‘attempt at manifest localization or Botswana-ization: to claim and define a place for Botswana Kalanga within the national space of Botswana, with as little reference as possible to Zimbabwe’ (Werbner 2004: 71). Across the globe, there are certain pressures placed on minority groups to assimilate into their national communities culturally. White Batswana’s active distancing from their European origins and their embrace of Botswana nationalism are two measures they have taken to enhance belonging. Citizenship is arguably the most significant aspect of collective identity for this group: it is what differentiates them from local expatriates who share the same lifestyle, and it is a source of great personal and collective pride. Indeed, status is accorded to white Batswana relative to expatriates simply on account of their citizenship. It is a point of pride for them, as they believe Botswana – and particularly the Okavango – is perceived as a desirable place to be. There is great respect given to the ‘old families’, who can trace several generations within the Okavango. Richard describes being with a group of friends drinking and joking noisily at one of Maun’s bar/restaurants when several generations of Maun’s most long-standing white family arrived. He said his group instantly stopped their tomfoolery and politely greeted each member of the family. The more emplaced one is – through length of family ties to Botswana, through being born and raised in Maun, through being schooled in the country, through being adept in local language and customs – the more status one is given.

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Along with citizenship, white Batswana embrace the various national symbols, from the flag to the Setswana language, and they carry their omangs (Botswana citizen identity cards) as practical and symbolic evidence of their national belonging. White Batswana use the appellation ‘Motswana’ consistently and unselfconsciously when referring to themselves. Interestingly, Independence Day is celebrated with as much gusto among white as any other citizens, with festivities focusing on the notion of the birth of a nation, more than the rejection of the protectorate administration. It has been suggested that southern African whites tend to bypass the nation in developing meaningful identities. Draper, Spierenburg and Wels (2004: 344) describe how white communities ‘make attempts at resolving the riddle of the national question in South Africa through identifying with nature and the region, above the nation state’. Similarly, of white Zimbabweans, Hughes (2005: 160) posits that ‘among these Euro-Africans, some have chosen – almost as an act of will – to identify with the continent as a whole, rather than with any one country or even with the southern subcontinent’. This could not be further from the case among white Batswana, who are strongly nationalistic and see themselves unequivocally as Batswana. As Yuval-Davis (2004: 215) suggests, belonging ‘is not just about membership, rights, and duties, but also about the emotions that such memberships evoke’. White Batswana frequently express their love for Botswana in a highly emotive register. One man in his thirties waxed lyrical about his commitment to Botswana: ‘I will never, never leave this country; never ever. It is the most beautiful place. It’s afforded me to live my life’. Similarly Grace from Gaborone responded to my question about whether she sees her future in Botswana as follows: ‘Yes definitely. I wouldn’t be happy anywhere else. I tried for seven years, and I hated every minute of it’. These kinds of assertions and the mobilisation of national symbols all serve an important function in cementing senses of belonging. Their emphatic nature speaks, I believe, not only to their emotional connections to place, but to a certain level of insecurity, be it conscious or otherwise, within their place in the nation. Lowenthal (1985: 42) appositely describes how ‘discontinuity impels many who grow up in pioneer lands either to exaggerate attachments to romanticized homelands or stridently to assert an adoptive belonging’ (see also Pocius 2000 [1991]: 22; Melucci 1997: 65). In a similar vein, of white Zimbabweans, Hughes (2006: 271) suggests that ‘[t]hey must demand the status of a native precisely because they seem so foreign – and they know it’. The nationalistic orientation of white Batswana and its dramatic expression can, therefore, be read as both the result of experiential connectedness, and a strategy to ward off the ontological insecurity inherent in their subject position.

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Conclusion White Batswana Belonging through their Relationship with the Nation-state The relatively benign colonial history and contemporary sociopolitical dynamics in Botswana, and particularly the state’s emphasis on the individual within the civic citizenship model, allow white Batswana to downplay associations with southern Africa’s colonial past in order to take full advantage of citizen rights and senses of legitimacy in the postcolony. Tswana cultural dominance paradoxically persists alongside the state’s individualist orientation and has resulted in the widespread perception that the ethnic members of the eight dominant Tswana merafe are the most authentic citizens. The symbolic privileging of the ‘MotswanaMotswana’ that this entails is seen by many to deny minorities the ontological and material security of these ideal citizens. Unlike those minorities disadvantaged by the relegation of their languages and cultural values and practices to the private sphere, however, white citizens are privileged by the state’s modernist structures that have resulted in their being culturally and linguistically equipped to engage fully in the nation’s economic and civic life. This extends to an embrace of the symbols of nationalism, which are celebrated so robustly as to suggest a certain level of insecurity driving such responses. A certain level of precarity arguably also underpins the enthusiasm with which white Batswana view their incorporation into the Tawana morafe. Identification as BaTawana, replete as it is with its emphasis on autochthonous connections and the pre-eminence of an identity based on the place and people that one is born into and among, fulfils white Batswana desires for both a parochial identity and a sense of acceptance by the region’s politically dominant community. Access to such localised identities, along with the prevalence of the civic citizenship model and the absence of histories of overt interracial conflict, has enabled white Batswana to construct senses of legitimacy within discourses of political autochthony, which in turn counter the inherent insecurity of their subject position.

Chapter 5

Race Relations and Community Ties in the Okavango K Belonging to the nation for a minority community requires not only the kinds of formal rights and recognition bestowed by the state, but also acceptance and positive connections at the community level. Good interracial relations are seen by white citizens as a hallmark of the Okavango community, and white Batswana identity is constructed against other southern African whites, who they see as prejudiced towards black Africans. These sentiments are expressed repeatedly, including in the following conversation I had with a 25-year-old man who grew up in the northern part of the Okavango, where his parents own and run a fishing lodge. He comes from a long line of white Batswana, with his mother a fourth-generation citizen, while his father traces his forebears’ arrival in Botswana to 1894. He is a thoughtful, sensitive young man and was very forthcoming in discussing his life, the challenges he faced, his perceived shortcomings and hopes for the future. The following comments stemmed from a conversation about his experience of boarding school in South Africa and the things he missed about home: I guess there’s some places in South Africa where kids who grew up on farms probably get along just as we do with local kids. But we never had that sort of, I don’t know how to say, there was no sort of racial separation, you know. My black friends were welcome anywhere at our camp and our home. And it really hit me when I was at boarding school and all of a sudden they were blacks and we were whites and there was this big difference …

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And it’s something that worries me actually, because we’ve got a lot of expats coming to Botswana, and they bring that sort of mentality with them. I think now there’s definitely a lot more resentment towards white people, and it does upset me quite a bit, because now ... I notice it, definitely, being a citizen. As soon as someone realises that you’re a citizen, their whole attitude towards you changes completely. Whether you’re at the border post, or buying something at the shop here, or whatever it is. You greet the guy in Setswana, he asks you for your driver’s licence or omang, and they see you’re a Motswana, and then they start talking to you. And you can see their whole face changes and everything. Definitely their whole attitude towards you is very different. So I think it’s something to be concerned about. Personally, I don’t like it the way a lot of these expats work and deal with a lot of the local people. I think it’s, if they want to live here, then they must go with the way it is.

In the following discussion I explore how belonging is augmented for white Batswana, such as this young man, through perceived positive relationships with the broader community. White Batswana tend to downplay, or even deny, the existence of racism in Botswana broadly, and the Okavango, particularly. When pushed to recognise racism’s presence, they attribute culpability to southern African white expatriates, while mobilising discourses and practices that they see as non-racist. While their positive perceptions of interracial relations are in many cases premised in lived experience, there is also a certain amount of idealism in their views that does not necessarily reflect the experiences of black Batswana, who feel racism is increasingly pervasive in the Okavango. The very fact of the persistence of a discrete white community, owing to the rarity of interracial marriage, indicates that race continues to be a significant social category, which is further evidenced through the persistent segregation between black and white on a social level. This discord between claims to anti-racism and the realities of social segregation arises out of the fact that even while white Batswana firmly subscribe to a belief in racial difference, they feel strongly about the respectful treatment of all people, and thus define racism in fairly narrow terms. The situation is further complicated, as while racial identities are certainly salient, in many situations people categorise themselves and others by more specific markers. Identity politics are played out less around race alone than at the intersections between race, ethnicity, class and citizenship. Stereotyping based on various conflations of these categories results in both positive and negative implications for white Batswana belonging. The discussion is organised around the intersection of race with three key categories: ethnicity, socioeconomic position and citizenship. Firstly, through describing identity construction in the Okavango, I suggest that

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the more specific markers of ethnicity tend to be of greater significance than race in many day-to-day contexts. This does not negate the persistence of race as a central identity category, however, which I demonstrate through a discussion of white Batswana perceptions of interracial marriage, along with the experiences of black Batswana in regard to racism. In the second section I explore how the conflation of race and class, and more specifically whiteness and wealth, has led to an ongoing privileging of white citizens in the Okavango. This dynamic is perpetuated through relationships between white Batswana and their domestic staff, yet I describe how these are not simplistic scenarios of dominance and subordination, but are characterised by mutual benefit and burden. In the third section I turn to the intersections of race and citizenship to argue that in many circumstances citizenship is more salient as an identity category than race for both black and white. Finally, I describe the primacy of citizenship, as it manifests in shared cultural values across Batswana of varying racial and ethnic groups.

Race and Ethnicity The sequencing of the human genome has unequivocally confirmed that race as a biological category is indefensible (Leslie 2012). Regardless of the wide acceptance in the scholarly community that race is a social construct with little biological basis, it continues to operate within society as a powerful means of categorising people. In colonial Africa, race was used to denote groupings of people of shared biological features, and particularly skin colour. These physical characteristics were claimed to determine the cultural values and practices, abilities, proclivities and so forth of members of each particular group. The various ‘races’ were constructed in a rigid hierarchy determining access to many rights and resources. In postcolonial Africa, the profound injustices executed in the name of race have led to the emphatic challenging of the stratification inherent in the colonial system, and yet senses of alterity based on historical racial groupings continue to hold currency. In contemporary Botswana, while the notion that biology determines culture may be less prevalent than previously, a strong sense of difference based on biology persists, and black and white remain commonly mobilised categories. While race constructs continue to retain salience, more specific ethnic categories tend to be used to identify people on a day-to-day basis in Botswana. Ethnicity is comprised by two sets of core features: firstly, recognition of the presence of shared attributes, including common ancestry, language and cultural beliefs; and, secondly, delineation of a group from

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others perceived as different (Eriksen 1991; Barth 1969). In Ngamiland’s neighbouring Ghanzi district, the Afrikaner community is renowned for holding rigid constructions of race. Yet, even among this group, those deemed ‘black’ are more commonly thought of in terms of their tribal affiliations, rather than as a homogeneous group. ‘They think of Bamangwato and Bangwaketse rather than the collective Tswana’, write Russell and Russell (1979: 126). Broad racial categories are less often evoked in the Okavango than ethnic particularities on account of the vast differences in the economic underpinnings, political structures and social and cultural values and practices of the region’s various groups. The kind of ‘misinformed prejudice’ held responsible for racist behaviours in Western contexts is less relevant among citizens of Botswana where ‘familiarity and intimacy are the norm’ and ‘images of other ethnic groups are derived from shared specific experiences with particular people’ (Russell and Russell 1979: 30). White people are similarly perceived in more particular ethnic terms in many contexts. There is a strong sense of difference between Afrikaans and English-speaking citizens, who perceive themselves as different again from white tourists and expatriates of various nations. For English-derived white Batswana, then, collective identity is based less on whiteness than on shared cultural values, such as a respect for resourcefulness, a lack of materialism, the embodied skills and knowledge required for work in the bush, and the premium placed on freedom and a relaxed lifestyle. These cultural values, along with their citizenship, shared histories and experiences, and a belief in possessing non-racist attitudes, are seen by white Batswana as distinguishing them from other whites. This is interesting as in many Western contexts whiteness is argued to be conceptualised as normative and as ‘an apparently empty cultural space’ (Frankenberg 1993: 192). By contrast, living in such close proximity to vastly different others has had the effect of accentuating white Batswana’s awareness of their own idiosyncratic cultural patterns. Somewhat paradoxically, beyond recognising the contemporary cultural/linguistic differences of those identifying as English or Afrikaner, shared ancestry tends to be downplayed. This is unlike many communities globally for whom ancestry constitutes a core element of collective identity. Europe – be it England or Holland – is not lamented as a lost home, and contemporary Europeans are seen as possessing considerably different lifestyles, values and practices to white Batswana. England, the ancestral home of the majority of the Okavango’s white Batswana with whom I worked, is described disdainfully as ‘Mud Island’ in reference to the rainy and cold climate, as compared with Botswana’s year-round sunshine. This sense of distance from Europe in part derives from the fact

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that many families trace their roots through several generations in various parts of Africa, rendering European connections more distant. However, even those more recently arrived tend to focus on their African present rather than their European past, which serves the important function of strengthening emplacement in Botswana. While ethnicity in many instances proves a more salient identity category than race, the fact of white Batswana’s European descent is written on their bodies and is preserved across the generations through their proclivity to marrying and having children with other European descendants. That a white population still exists as a discrete community makes evident the persistence of senses of alterity and social segregation along racial lines. When I query people about the infrequency of interracial marriage, they mostly claim it is too difficult due to cultural differences. Yet, white Batswana marry across the English/Afrikaans divide and also commonly marry white expatriates. In this set of practices we see the conflation of cultural differences with physical characteristics as encapsulated in the race concept. Putting aside the more specific markers of ethnicity, black and white people are generally seen as having different values, beliefs and practices that range from preferences in lifestyle and interests, through to religion and morality. This set of beliefs evidences the persistence of racialised thinking in the Okavango. Interestingly, it tends to be the individuals who share the most similar lifestyles and have the greatest knowledge of the ‘other’ who are most adamant about patrolling racial boundaries. Deon, the young Afrikaansspeaking man, grew up in close proximity to the Naro Bushmen of Ghanzi. He speaks the language fluently and has great respect for the people, their cultural values and particularly their skills in the bush. Yet, after extolling at length his respect for the Naro in an interview, he firmly asserted that he would never marry into the community. He justified this through stating: ‘you don’t mix races’. Deon’s views align with traditional Afrikaner constructions of racial difference common to the Ghanzi community. Anthropologists working in this area in the seventies argue that ‘each particular cultural feature shared with a neighbouring ethnic group represents, positively, a basis for interaction and shared interests, and negatively, a threat of assimilation’ (Russell and Russell 1979: 67). The predominantly Afrikaner white community of Ghanzi is notorious among the Okavango’s white population for behaving in ways deemed as racist. Yet, while most Okavango white Batswana would not make such racially deterministic statements, the fact that few marry interracially indicates that a fairly deep-seated sense of difference prevails, which is not entirely dissimilar from Deon’s perspective. This sentiment is not necessarily unique to white Batswana either, with the politically dominant

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BaTawana being traditionally endogamous. ‘They looked down upon and discouraged marriage to non-BaTawana’, writes Tlou (1977: 375). There are exceptions to the rule, however, and the treatment of those interracial marriages that do occur is significant. The most famous interracial marriage in Botswana is that of Sir Seretse Khama, the Independent nation’s first president, a well-loved national hero who defied great pressure, including huge international condemnation and the loss of his role locally as Chief for some years, to marry an English woman, Ruth Williams (see Parsons 1998; Tlou, Parsons and Henderson 1995). Interlocutors from a range of ethnic backgrounds have spoken of this marriage as having a profound and positive impact on relations between black and white in Botswana. In contexts where racial boundaries are stringently enforced, it is the people who transgress boundaries that tend to cause the most distress and are most frequently ostracised (Russell and Russell 1979: 72). Interracial marriages challenge racial boundaries, as do the children of these unions. Far from being spurned, however, so-called ‘coloured’ people in the Okavango tend to be of high social standing. Their ties to diverse sections of the community are often mobilised as a positive resource, and in Maun members of prominent coloured families are well represented in government and business. On the national level, the son of Sir Seretse and Ruth, Ian Khama, was inaugurated as President in 2008 and continues in the role to date. The fact that the child of a mixed-race union holds the country’s top job affirms Botswana’s relative tolerance of difference, even while it remains anomalous to the norm. In the Okavango, the small number of interracial marriages that have occurred are for the most part between white expatriate men and black Batswana women. White Batswana of either gender seldom marry across the racial divide, and their views of such marriages are somewhat varied. The response I received from one white Motswana man in his thirties when I questioned him about interracial marriage in a recorded interview follows: The majority of the interracial marriages are – half of the people I’ve never even met before, I see them from time to time around town and that – they tend to be Europeans, Germans, whatever. For me, you know, they’re the ugliest bunch of people I’ve met, half of them. I figure this is, for a lot of people, this is a way, a place where you can come and be happy, you know. And I think a lot of them genuinely just get involved in the relationship, and I think they are actually treated very well, although from the outside it can look a bit, kind of like this is their only way out, type of thing. But then you get people like [a white South African expatriate married to a MoTawana woman] who, he’s so into the tribal thing, he’s into the

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whole thing. He’s really trying to understand it and appreciate it and live it. It is part of, you know, his whole philosophy. But I’d say the majority by far are kind of odd.

The claim that European men form relationships with Batswana women if they are too unattractive to successfully woo white women suggests an implicit belief in some level of superiority of white people over black. This sense of superiority is related to conflations of class and race within the orientalist notion that European men are able to attract women in Africa (or Asia) on account of their relative wealth. This man allows for the possibility of a relationship forming ‘genuinely’ and happiness ensuing, but his overall tone and commentary makes it clear that he does not consider interracial marriages to be normal or desirable. While other white Batswana would not be as forthright in articulating this, the small number of interracial marriages indicates this man is not alone in his beliefs. His claim that he has not met some of the European men further suggests that those in interracial marriages are classed as outsiders peripheral to the community, as the small town demographics mean that virtually all long-term white residents know each other. This man’s disparagement is not extended to all interracial couples, however. His relatively positive assessment of the South African expatriate married to a MoTawana woman derives from his perception that he is motivated not by desperation, but by a philosophy that encompasses respect for the local culture. He went on to speak favourably of another of his close white Motswana friends, who is happily married to a MoNgwaketse woman. For this white Motswana, and for others with whom I discussed the issue, while interracial marriage is seen as generally undesirable, acceptance or otherwise of existing interracial couples is largely contingent on the individuals involved. Such an approach has allowed a handful of prominent, well-loved interracial couples to be at the centre of the community. One such couple is a 40-year-old MoNgwaketse woman and her 43-year-old white Motswana husband. They attended the same primary school in Gaborone, have been married for almost two decades and have three children. During the time I lived in the community, it appeared that they moved seamlessly between groups and were liked and respected by Batswana, black and white. I asked the couple if there were issues in the early period of their marriage in terms of family and community responses, yet they claimed there were no serious objections. The white Motswana man’s father held a high-level administrative position in the protectorate government and, at Independence, became a close friend and advisor to Seretse Khama. His mother worked as the new president’s chef. Of his father, the husband

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said: ‘I think my dad was quietly proud of me ending up with a Motswana’. He believes that the BaNgwaketse accepted him in part because they knew of the close relationship his father had with the much-loved president. After living the first years of their married life in Gaborone, in 1994 the husband moved to Maun to look for business opportunities, initially leaving his wife and young daughter in the capital. As he came to know people, he would explain that he was married and had a daughter, but did not tend to mention his wife’s ethnic background. He shared offices with another white Motswana man, who would often ask when he was going to meet the family. The husband described the meeting as follows: ‘When eventually the day came, I was eagerly looking for reactions. When [my office companion] first saw my daughter he said one of the funniest things I have ever heard, and which I will always treasure. He said: “let’s face it, one day we are all going to be khaki”’. Despite this prediction and the positive experiences of this particular family, there is no indication that the Okavango will become khaki for some time yet. Beyond the lack of interracial marriage, as the anecdote at the opening of this chapter makes clear, there is a sense among white Batswana that the Okavango is for the most part a place of interracial harmony. This belief was stated in virtually all discussions I had with white community members about race issues, and it was not considered to be inconsistent with a belief that people should marry in racially endogamous unions. As Richard succinctly put it: ‘there are tribes, but there’s good intertribal relationships’. The following is a fairly typical response from a white Motswana regarding whether he feels accepted by the broader Okavango community: ‘The local people are nice. That’s the thing I love about this country: there’s no racism. If you check the Botswana flag, it’s blue for the sky on top, it’s white for the white people, then black for the black people, and white for white people again, and then blue at the bottom for water’. His recourse to the nation’s flag to evidence positive interracial connections is consistent with a common pattern of white Batswana mobilising state symbols and rhetoric in defense of their position within the nation. His claim to racism’s absence is another white Batswana mantra, which he qualified when I questioned him further: ‘It’s not non-existent’, he conceded: ‘It’s there, but racism in this country, if you’re a racist in this country, you will never get anywhere because the government does not tolerate racism. If you come from outside, and you do the slightest racist thing, they just take your passport, cut it in half and send you home. Racism is not tolerated here’. In this statement is a characteristic discursive shift away from confronting the possibility of white Batswana racism through the scapegoating of ‘outsiders’, who are consistently charged with responsibility for any racism unfolding in the region.

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White Batswana claims to an absence of racism in and around the Okavango were belied by the experiences of my black and coloured interlocutors. One highly educated MoTawana woman, who has some close friendships and strong business connections within the white community, responded as follows when I questioned whether, on the whole, she felt she was treated with respect by white people: ‘I think it’s shit sometimes; no, most times. I don’t know, you meet people, and then you get introduced to them, and they say hi, and then the next time it’s like they don’t even know you’. While she is referring predominantly to white expatriates in this comment, it still contradicts white Batswana claims to a nonracist society. Even more emphatic in her condemnation was a coloured woman, who has lived in several parts of Botswana. When I asked her how she found Maun relatively, she responded: ‘It’s the most racist joint I’ve ever seen in my damn life! You know, when you look at people, and you’re like, how has this town survived without a civil war breaking out? I can’t understand; I just can’t. But because Botswana’s peaceful, and you can call me a kaffir a couple of times, and I’ll leave you alone, you can carry on’. I asked her to elaborate, and to provide any examples: The thing is there are no concrete examples, okay, it’s all subtle, it’s all wishy-washy. You know, it’s just the moment you walk into anywhere. For example, we were sitting here [a bar/restaurant owned by a white Motswana and frequented predominantly by white locals and tourists]; I think it was like the first couple of months when I came for my interview. And this place was very full and a black couple came in to sit down, and I swear you could feel the shift of atmosphere in this place … The moment some person of a different orientation or colour comes in, and they’re not a “yes” person, suddenly the music is turned off or is changed, or “we don’t have that particular beer in the fridge”, just to discourage that person from being there. It has now changed since I’ve been here, but the ones who are going, the Batswana who do go to [bars like this] are guys who are like, they can handle it. Coconuts as I call them.

‘Coconut’ is an expression referring to a person seen as ‘white’ on the inside, through embracing cultural values and practices normatively associated with Europeans, but dark on the outside. People described as such are usually educated Batswana of higher socioeconomic position, and these are the people with whom white Batswana most commonly engage on a social level. Indeed, social class is of central significance in determining the prevalence of interracial relationships, with elites of diverse ethnicities cooperating closely in business and mixing in the social sphere (Gulbrandsen 2012: 208). What is important to note in these women’s comments is the considerable discord between white Batswana

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descriptions of a racially harmonious society, and the deeply stratified one described by members of the broader community. While certainly not all whites are naive to black Batswana perceptions of race issues, many seem to deny them as part of a determined effort to feel a sense of welcome and belonging in the place they call home. Their shifting of culpability for racist attitudes to non-citizen whites is central to serving this purpose.

Race and Class White Privilege As alluded to, the position of white Batswana in relation to the broader Okavango community is substantially impacted by the conflation of ideas of race and class. Dyer (1997: 31) describes how colonialism led to the construction of white people as enterprising and entrepreneurial. The association of white people with wealth is certainly commonplace in the Okavango. The Setswana appellation for white people, lekgoa (pl. makgoa), is commonly used in lieu of ‘boss’ (Nyamnjoh 2006: 103). I asked a 29-year-old MoTawana man to explain to me what the term lekgoa meant: ‘Lekgoa, white person, someone who has money, who can do whatever, he can employ more people and pay them’. He went on to say: ‘Lekgoa means a white person, and that’s how we call them. Even at home, like if I’ve done something very nice to my Mum, she’ll say, “hey, my lekgoa is back!” To us we respect, you know, we respect this colour. You know my Mum will say it, but I’m not white’. This is a very positive spin on whiteness that is not shared by all; however, the privileging of whites on account of their perceived wealth is clearly evident and has historical precedent in the high status BaTawana have traditionally accorded wealthy community members (Tlou 1977: 376). In documenting the historical formation of Tswana merafe, Gulbrandsen (1993b: 568) describes how rulers who augmented the people’s material wealth gained considerable respect and support as a result. While certainly not rulers in the postcolonial period, the association of whites with wealth and the provision of employment appear to endow them with a certain amount of symbolic capital among the BaTawana. This is supported by Nyamnjoh’s (2006: 101) findings in his study of citizenship and xenophobia in Botswana, where he observes that in contrast to Africans of other nationalities, Indians are resented less by the majority Batswana, and whites least of all. White immigrants are seen as boosting the economy and creating jobs, whereas foreign blacks are seen as an economic drain, taking jobs away from

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Batswana. ‘In other words, while Batswana stand to gain modernity (se lo sa Makgowa) through association with the West, they stand to lose it through links with the rest’ (Nyamnjoh 2006: 13). As modernity is so highly valued by the Tswana, whites’ association with it considerably fortifies their standing. White citizens further benefit from the fact that contemporary Botswana’s bureaucratic, legislative and economic systems derive from the British modes of governance instituted in the protectorate years. The government implores its citizens daily to work hard, be productive and develop (Durham 2002: 148); a message steeped in capitalist and individualistic values. Western systems and values are further entrenched through engagement with the global economy, and while this creates challenges for some of the populace, the culturally familiar models render the state’s systems and economic participation readily accessible for whites. The economic privileging of whites stems not only from institutional structures, but also from normative practices within both white and broader Batswana communities. Werbner (2004:76) argues that since the days of the protectorate, big business has been in the hands of white people, few of whom have given Africans full partnership in these enterprises. This pattern is evident in Okavango tourism, yet I would suggest that white citizens and expatriates should be differentiated in this sense. Many white Batswana own their own businesses, and yet their operations are for the most part small. Big business is unquestionably in the hands of expatriates (Samatar 1999: 131). This is not to say that white citizens are exempt from the privileges of whiteness, and some white Batswana, such as Cedric, readily recognise this: I’ve got a 21-year-old son, who is busy finishing his studies in Cape Town. He’s doing what’s called an International Hotel Marketing and Management Diploma. So the idea is, if he goes through with it, and he needs to get some exposure work-wise, Maun is probably the best place for him. A) he’s white; and B) he’s a citizen, so he’ll be able to walk into any job he wants.

In the culture/race/class/citizenship nexus, Cedric’s son is privileged on all counts: he has a parent who, as a successful small business owner, values and has had the means to provide his son with a good education; he is a citizen, with all the attendant rights and opportunities; and the industry in which he has chosen to work is built on a model derived from Western cultural values and practices, which explicitly encourages the participation of white people (see Chapter Two).

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Other white Batswana do not recognise the opportunities and privilege their skin colour affords them. As with whites in Zimbabwe (see Pilossof 2012: 162), some claim that any success they have is purely attributable to their own hard work. Moreover, as described previously, white Batswana often choose lifestyle over ambition and do not tend to earn great amounts of money. Relative to the white tourists and many of the expatriates with whom they work, they have considerably fewer material resources. As a result, there is some frustration among white citizens concerning the assumptions made by many Batswana about their perceived wealth. Fechter (2005: 98) argues that the guilt derived from the relative affluence of white expatriates in Jakarta, Indonesia, leads to frustration with being stereotyped as wealthy. She suggests that in order to downplay their own privileged and powerful positions, white expatriates emphasise the political and social power of Indonesians (Fechter 2005: 97). A similar phenomenon is at play among some white Batswana, who emphasise the political power of the majority Batswana and the economic power of expatriates, in lieu of recognising their own privilege. The fact that they often choose not to develop their position to a greater extent in the economic sphere by no means negates the fact that privilege persists. In addition, it can be argued that the decision to keep a low economic profile serves to differentiate them from expatriates, who are welcomed but also resented for their economic success.

Relationships with Domestic Staff In considering the intersections of class and race, the relationships most central to daily life for many white Batswana are those with their domestic staff. Most white citizens and expatriates have a maid, who often also serves as a nanny. In addition, many also employ a gardener. While middle-class citizens of all ethnic backgrounds employ black domestic staff, the obverse seldom, if ever, happens: to my knowledge, there are not, and never have been, any white maids or gardeners in the Okavango. The class/race nexus in such a situation undoubtedly perpetuates racebased assumptions through the normalisation of subservient blacks and dominant whites. Race and/or ethnicity can in this way become less a means of categorisation than a principle determinant of societal structure (Comaroff and Comaroff 1992: 58). For this reason, the practice of African whites having black domestic labour can be seen as perpetuating racially determined inequalities. The situation is complex, however, and there is a strong sense of obligation among white citizens to use their relative wealth to provide work

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opportunities for those less privileged. There are many Batswana desperate for work and people go from door to door throughout Maun’s homes and businesses requesting employment. In this environment, middle-class people of all ethnic backgrounds feel it is their duty to employ people where possible. To give an example of the kinds of commonplace dynamics, when one white community member I came to know bought and moved into a new house, the previous owner requested that he continue providing employment for the gardener. The homeowner did not need the gardener, and there was not nearly enough work to keep him busy full-time (the plot was a quarter of an acre). Despite this, he felt he could not refuse, as the gardener was in his late forties, had no formal education or training and would struggle to find other work. The gardener was HIV positive and the new homeowner took him to the clinic each month to receive his antiretroviral treatments. The relationship grew over time to be one of mutual care. The gardener spoke to me about how worried he was that the homeowner did not have a mosadi (woman) living with him to look after him. He scolded the homeowner constantly about smoking and drinking too much, and berated him endlessly on the issue of marriage. Under pressure from the gardener, the homeowner has recently taken his advice of having a mosadi around, through employing the gardener’s wife to clean and maintain the inside of his tiny onebedroom house. Again, this is more an act of charity than a role that required filling. The race/gender stereotypes are obviously evident here, and yet the homeowner, gardener and his wife certainly do not feel that the problematic politics of race and class would be surmounted by the former doing his own domestic labour and leaving the latter unemployed. Indeed, when I raised such ideas with white Batswana, I was accused of being naively ‘Western-minded’ and out of touch with the realities of poverty in a developing nation. Yet, many scholars view such paternalistic relationships as invariably negative. In his history of a South African sharecropper, Kas Maine, Van Onselen (1996: 289) evocatively describes paternalism as ‘part chain, part umbilical cord’. He writes: Kas was gradually coming round to the view that, for all its many virtues in a harsh environment, paternalism was predicated on a structured inequality that required the perpetual adolescence of the junior partner. It left a black farmer with no room for either psychological or economic growth. (Van Onselen 1996: 281)

Contrary to such a view, White Batswana tend to believe these kinds of domestic relationships play a significant role in promoting positive interracial relationships. In another family I came to know well, a 2-year-old

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white Motswana boy has been looked after by his MoTawana nanny from birth, while his mother runs a small business in town. The nanny’s village is about one hundred metres from the family’s home. The nanny spends a few hours in the morning doing some cleaning at the house, and then at around midday she returns to her home with the little boy, where he plays with the village children until his mother collects him at around three in the afternoon. The little boy adores these children, and it is easy to see that they love him. Despite a very loving relationship with his own family, the little boy is often reluctant to leave the village when his mother comes to collect him. He is learning Setswana in addition to the cultural ways of the village community, while the nanny’s children are learning English and often come and play at the little boy’s home, even when their mother is not working. In situations like this where mutual respect is at the core of the relationship, the intimate knowledge of the culture and language of the ‘other’ can be a significant determinant of good interracial relations. In the longer term, however, such relationships are affected by the exacerbation of differences in socioeconomic position as children become adults. White Batswana teens are usually sent to high school in South Africa, and many go on to tertiary education of some form elsewhere, while local Batswana in most instances do not have the resources and opportunities for such education, and thus remain in the region. Childhood friends in this way grow apart as their spheres of experience diverge. While a friendly repartee continues among such childhood friends into adulthood, with few exceptions, white Batswana develop their most intimate friendships with other white citizens and expatriates. In a small number of cases, where relationships between employers and staff are close and the economic means available, white Batswana provide for the children of their staff to attend private schools. Access to good education provides the means for individuals to change the circumstances of their families considerably. I became friends, for example, with a black MoTawana woman whose father had been an illiterate tracker working for a white professional hunter. My friend had her school tuition paid by her father’s employer. She is now working for the son of the professional hunter as a camp manager in his tourist operation and has responsibility for more than forty employees. On gaining experience in the industry, she plans to start her own business. Opportunities for someone in her position in Botswana are great. With the government’s citizen development schemes, it is highly feasible that she can start her own tourism business and break the cycle of race/class congruence in one generation. On account of the white community’s reputation for taking care of their domestic staff in this kind of way, many Batswana covet

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work with them. This accords with Nyamnjoh’s (2006: 197) findings in his study of domestic workers in Gaborone, which revealed that whites are seen as the employers of choice and ‘tend to pay generously, and to be considerate and caring’. As evident in the above examples, relationships between white Batswana and their employees tend to be characterised by the blurring of boundaries between the personal and professional. Workers, both in the domestic and public realm, demand a level of protection and care that goes far beyond that considered normal in the West. For example, if a worker dies in a manner entirely unrelated to his work, such as from AIDS related illness, the deceased’s family will expect the employer to pay for funeral costs and provide an ongoing pension to the family. These relationships extend beyond the realm of work in other ways. In 2008, I attended the wedding of a white Motswana small business owner and his expatriate fiancé, and the twenty or so (mostly unskilled) employees from the couple’s business attended the wedding. The class differentials were certainly evident, however, in that they did not freely socialise with the other predominantly white guests in the way the small handful of BaTawana guests of higher socioeconomic standing did. These kinds of structurally unequal and yet relatively intimate relationships arguably have their cultural precedent in the clientship system of the BaTawana, which is a ‘relationship more or less voluntarily entered into for the mutual benefit of both the client and his patron or master’ (Tlou 1977: 377). Finally, complicating any simplistic assumptions about the relationships between white Batswana and domestic staff are the challenges posed for the former. The difficulty of the position of maids and domestic workers is clearly evident and widely understood. Among many other issues, salaries and conditions are frequently poor, they are vulnerable to exploitation on account of working in private spaces, and the work is tedious, dirty and undesirable. While I by no means suggest that the woes of their employers are of a similar kind or scale, their challenges do warrant mention, if only because they are less frequently discussed. As Nyamnjoh (2006: 212) found in his study of domestic workers in Gaborone: ‘Maids are far from being a permanent asset, and employers’ real experiences with them suggest they are quite often a liability. Employers are not at ease, even when maids are employed precisely to make it possible for them to live a life of comfort’. With the benefits of being freed from the drudgery of domestic chores come the negative implications of the ongoing responsibility of care to employees and their families, loss of privacy within the home, the risk of poor relationships and, in some instances,

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exposure to theft. Consequently, having domestic help can be the cause of considerable stress. To summarise, the relationships between employers and employees are complex. While they detrimentally reinforce racial boundaries through the normalisation of the congruence of dominant whites and subordinate blacks, they also provide an avenue for the development of enduring interracial relationships, which despite being inherently hierarchical they, in many instances, reflect mutual care.

Contributions to Community Development Recognition of their relative wealth has resulted in the white community (both citizens and expatriates) playing a strong role in community development through their businesses, civil society organisations and in individual capacities. Not a month goes by without a charity event or fundraiser for community organisations in Maun. White Batswana are well represented in such efforts, and people tend to give generously of their time and money. Fundraising events for various local charities, such as Banaba Naga (Children in the Wilderness), Women Against Rape, Banaba Letsatsi (that works to keep children off the streets) and the Maun Animal Welfare Society are major occasions on the Maun social calendar. Such events take many forms from parties, variety shows and athletic feats, to raffles and clothing and food drives. A recent addition to these fundraising avenues is an online forum hosted through Facebook, ‘The Maun Bulletin Board’, which regularly features posts, and enthusiastic responses, to requests for help for misfortunes that have befallen community members. If a community member is injured, people give money to help them seek treatment, which generally requires travel to either Gaborone, or to South Africa. To give one example, this was the case when a community member was bitten by a black mamba snake (Dendroaspis polylepis) and required urgent airlifting to Johannesburg for treatment. White Batswana are well aware of how much better off they are than many of their compatriots, and they engage in community development projects in an effort to give back to those in need. It can certainly be argued that they do so to assuage guilt for their relative privilege, or as a public relations exercise to ensure their ongoing welcome in the community. However, their goodwill should not be dismissed as either solely instrumental, or as patronising and premised on subliminal feelings of superiority (cf. Rutherford 2004: 549 on white Zimbabweans). I agree

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with Werbner (2004: 8) in his critique of such dismissive assumptions about care among elites: The anthropologist’s guiding idea can no longer be that every elite act for the public good is no more than a dissembling appearance – power not naked but in one of its seductive disguises, another trick by the ruling group to maintain domination. That as a guiding idea – looking for the worst in the good – turns the anthropologist smugly to the muckraker’s task of unmasking or, more pretentiously, to all-knowing deconstruction.

This is not to deny that community contributions considerably augment white Batswana senses of belonging. As Pocius (2000 [1991]: 25) points out, belonging entails both benefits and obligations. This is explicitly articulated by Grace from Gaborone: For me, home is somewhere where you feel emotionally invested. You care about how it pans out, you care about what happens, you feel that you would like to contribute. You feel comfortable, you feel welcome, you feel that you can be who you are. Generally the people you would interact with are people that you would want to interact with. It comes down in the end to emotional investment.

An interesting aspect of Grace’s sense of home is the notion that the community is constituted by people with whom an individual wishes to interact. This does not imply sameness, but encompasses an interest in and sense of ease or comfort with one’s compatriots. Linked to this is Grace’s mention of the freedom to be ‘who you are’, which is of particular significance for a member of a minority cultural group within the nation. The element of home that is most strongly emphasised by Grace, however, is the idea of emotional investment, which is made manifest by white Batswana through their involvement in community development projects. The strong sense of community is facilitated in part by the remoteness of the region, the small size of the community, and the practical and emotional interdependence of its members, all of which have become central to collective identity. Maun residents pride themselves on their community spirit, and, indeed, I have never witnessed care of this scale anywhere else I have lived in the world. Of the community spirit that is so characteristic of Maun, Richard says it was learnt from the broader Batswana community. When the young boy described previously tragically died, the community raised a substantial amount of money to help with expenses and provide support. In the weeks following the tragedy, the family’s home was constantly filled with people, some they did not even know,

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coming to offer condolences and practical and emotional support. There were several hundred people at the funeral, including most of the white community and at least one hundred people of other ethnic backgrounds. The little boy’s Motswana nanny was seated at the front of the service with the boy’s parents and other close family members. Times of tragedy in this way appear to bring together diverse sectors of the community.

Race and Citizenship in the Okavango Identity Construction against the South African Other In contexts of great ethnic diversity such as the Okavango, racial identities are often conceived as constructed through and against an ‘other’. This ‘other’ is most commonly theorised as one of considerable difference (Rattansi 1994: 36; Morrison 1992: 8). Harrison (2003: 344) problematises this notion through arguing that ethnicity and nationalism should be understood as much as a politics of resemblance as difference. ‘The more intense the identification with the other’, he suggests, ‘the more radical the measures needed to counter it’ (Harrison 2003: 345). Harrison’s theory proves cogent in the case of Botswana. Werbner (2004: 72) describes how the Kalanga are the primary ‘other’ against whom the Tswana identify. As two Bantu language groups tussling over power in the upper echelons of government and private industry, they have much in common. Within the white community, boundaries are perceived particularly in terms of Afrikaans versus English linguistic and cultural identities, and also along the lines of citizenship, whereby the culturally similar white Batswana differentiate themselves from long-term expatriates. The boundary most clearly asserted, however, is that drawn between white Batswana and their primary ‘other’, white South Africans. As a white minority living in southern Africa, there are many parallels with the cultural values and practices of white South Africans, and yet white Batswana are stoutly nationalistic and do not like to be misidentified. One white Motswana man described how for a period when he was in high school, he consciously manipulated his accent in order to try to avoid sounding South African. This was not only an act of patriotism, but a very conscious distancing from a nation torn apart by apartheid. This kind of distancing from white South Africans is complicated by the fact that many white Batswana families trace their heritage to South Africa and continue to have family living there. Moreover, the majority of expatriates living in the Okavango are white South Africans, and most white Batswana have very close friendships and often intermarry with

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this group. Yet, despite or, as Harrison would see it, directly as a result of this closeness, the stereotypes and distancing prevail. In the young white Motswana man’s statement at the beginning of this chapter, it is clear that white Batswana identify against other white Africans very much in terms of relationships with black Africans. To try to get to the core of collective identity, I asked Richard how he sees white Batswana as different from the ostensibly similar white South Africans and Zimbabweans. He responded: Probably less racist. But I wouldn’t say that on a total level. I mean there’s still elements of people who are equal to the Zimbabwean attitude. But I’d say generally, Maun is different to Ghanzi, and Ghanzi is different to Gaborone. Here in Maun, generally us white Motswanas are very much less racist than elsewhere. I think everybody shares a very patriotic type of passion of the white Batswana, the people are very patriotic. We love it, eh. Don’t let anybody say we’re from South Africa or anything like that.

The distancing from both white Zimbabweans and South Africans is clear, and yet there is also a sense that there is strong regional variation in attitudes towards others in Botswana. Deon, who I quoted above as being adamantly against interracial marriage, concurs with the view that Ghanzi, particularly, is home to many deeply racist white citizens: I mean look at Ghanzi. You want do yourself a favour and go and speak to those people. You will see something completely different. A lot of people there speak Afrikaans and most of them are from South Africa as well, and so they’ve got a different view of life. Ignorance! They don’t appreciate where they are.

Deon who grew up in Ghanzi articulates here the two identity positions seen by the Okavango’s white Batswana as most characteristic of racism: Afrikanerdom and South African nationality. That Deon distances himself from these people he condemns as racist, while holding a belief that interracial marriage is not appropriate, does not sit as a paradox in his mind. He believes that people belong to discrete groups, and that these groups should not engage in exogamous relationships. Yet, he strongly feels that people should treat each other with respect, regardless of the group with whom they identify. Racism is seen by white Batswana as about how you treat people, whereas conceiving of people in terms of physical characteristics and patterns of cultural practice, and drawing boundaries between divergent groups in this way, is seen as legitimate and tends not to be recognised as part of a pattern of racialised thinking.

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White Batswana condemnation of disrespectful treatment of people goes beyond rhetoric. One evening in a bar in Maun owned by a white Motswana man and his expatriate wife, a group of Afrikaner tourists from South Africa were drinking and becoming increasingly rowdy. One of the group started heckling the MoTawana barman and making racially derogatory comments. On witnessing this, the white Motswana bar owner immediately approached the customer and told him to desist from speaking in that manner, or to leave the premises. The intoxicated Afrikaner was a huge man physically, and was behaving quite aggressively, and so this took some courage. The situation was quite tense, and it appeared that violence would ensue. When the Afrikaner man – continuing his stream of insults, now directed at the bar owner – stood up to leave, the group of white Batswana and expatriates with whom I was sitting cheered loudly and somewhat provocatively. The Afrikaner man left without further incident, yet the evening’s events stimulated numerous stories of a similar nature. Richard and Luke recounted a time when they were beaten up by Afrikaner rugby players for being ‘kaffir boeties’ (‘brothers of blacks’). Charlotte, the ‘born, bred and buttered’ white Motswana woman, spoke of an incident when she was in high school in South Africa. Some Afrikaner boys shouted over the school fence and asked her and her girlfriend to come to a party. She shouted back at them, ‘You wouldn’t want me to come!’ ‘Why?’ they asked, to which she replied, ‘because I’m a white kaffir!’ These kinds of stories, of which I heard many over the course of my fieldwork, demonstrate that white Batswana self-identify and are seen by some others as closely connected with the broader community – at least relative to South African whites. Through this discussion I am by no means arguing that there are not individuals with racist beliefs among the white citizens. The persistent social segregation in Maun, the experiences of racism described by black Batswana and the censure among many white citizens of interracial marriage suggest that white Batswana strongly subscribe to notions of racial difference, and do not always manage to live up to the ideals they hold in terms of the their treatment of people. Rather, the point I wish to make is that respect across groups has historically been a point of pride among Batswana generally, where a state of kagisano (harmony) is the widely ascribed to societal ideal. While I have described Botswana’s pervasive inequities and stratifications along the lines of race, class and gender, the belief that Botswana is characterised by a predominantly peaceful society is internalised by many of the nation’s citizens. Dominant discourses determine to an extent how ‘members of the nation should live, behave and identify themselves’ (Dorman, Hammett and Nugent 2007: 8). In regard to racism in Botswana, overt manifestations of such beliefs are to

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be suppressed. Consequently, while white Batswana may hold racist views, they seldom express these sentiments publicly, even within ‘in-group’ settings. In the fourteen months of my fieldwork, which included many situations where alcohol flowed freely, racial jokes, insults and derogatory constructions of black Batswana were seldom expressed. In referring to Batswana, the only referent I heard used that could be construed as derogatory was the term ‘monna’, which in Setswana means ‘man’. This, along with the more commonly used term ‘local’, is not inherently derogatory, but can be read as such in the sense of being an essentialising term that erases internal difference. While ideally Batswana would always be described in ways recognising their individuality rather than their ethnicity, white Batswana practice is a far cry from the explicit racism described among other white African communities. Recent research by Verwey and Quayle (2012) describes the Afrikaners with whom they worked in Bloemfontein, South Africa, as engaging in divergent public and private discourses on race. While publicly distancing themselves from apartheid and the racialised thinking that underpinned it, in private settings they expressed extremely racist views, notwithstanding the presence of researchers: ‘Talk of Africa (and Africans) was universally negative, and usually associated with images of uncivilized chaos, decay, or barbarism’, they write (Verwey and Quayle 2012: 570). Similarly, of the widespread occupations of white-owned farms in Zimbabwe, Pilossof (2012: 92, 162) suggests that hostility towards white farmers was the cause not only of their social isolation and wealth in the midst of abject poverty, but also of ‘their attitude, apparently still infused with the racial prejudices of the country’s colonial past’. Pilossof (2012: 169) describes the highly derogatory language that is systematically used by white farmers to refer to black Zimbabweans, and, disturbingly, the relish with which some of these farmers recounted incidences of perpetrating violence upon those occupying their farms. While this research demonstrates the persistence of deeply racialised thinking in the contemporary period, it is important to acknowledge that not all white South Africans and Zimbabweans are guilty of such behaviour and beliefs. Some of the most politically progressive people I came to know in Maun derived from South Africa, and yet deeply held racist beliefs persisted among others, and the stereotypes are certainly pervasive. The violence described in Zimbabwe contrasts strongly with the peaceful public culture of Botswana, where physical violence between black and white is uncommon. White Batswana’s awareness of such racist sentiments has resulted in their active distancing of their identities, values and practices from those of white Zimbabweans and South Africans, and this is a prudent

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strategy through which they attempt to deflect any perceptions of racist attitudes within their own community. White citizens are not the only ones who perceive themselves as less racist than other white Africans. Batswana distinguish between various white ethnicities, with white citizens, for the most part, faring relatively well in their assessments. As mentioned, I witnessed on numerous occasions a striking shift in a Motswana’s demeanour when they discovered the white person with whom they were talking was also a citizen. I asked Tshepo what she perceives to be the cultural differences between white Batswana and other whites. Even though I asked this as a general question and not in the course of a discussion about race, she responded very much in terms of their treatment of people: I think they are more accepting. Ja, definitely, those people are so relaxed. So chilled and more accepting. This is from my personal encounters with them. Definitely just trying to get by in life, and be in a place that they love, and respecting the people around them, which is the most important.

Batswana’s differentiation between categories of white people is made clear through the nomenclature utilised in referring to the various groupings. White citizens are for the most part referred to as Batswana. White South Africans are commonly referred to as Maburu (derivative of ‘Boer’, meaning an Afrikaner farmer) regardless of English or Afrikaans-speaking background, and tend to be viewed negatively; while Ma/lekgoa (whites from Europe and North America) are viewed more positively (Nyamnjoh 2006: 245; Russell and Russell 1979: 140; Tlou 1985: 78). This is on account of the perceived racist attitudes of the Maburu relative to the Makgoa, who are seen as more respectful (Nyamnjoh 2006: 104). This is precisely how Ronny stratifies categories of white people. He spoke at length about his distaste for Maburu, who he says are rude and at times shout at him, whereas he described his boss and other white Batswana of English-derivation as generally good people. He went on to say that tourists are the ‘best’ whites, in that they are the most polite. Familiarity does not consistently breed contempt, however. Ronny further explained the ways in which Setswana speakers refer to whites: ‘If you know them they are Motswana, but if you don’t know them they are lekgoa’. Le/makgoa is an ambivalent term that can have either positive or negative connotations depending on the context (Parsons 1997). Nyamnjoh (2007: 315) explains the prefix: In general, the ‘le/ma’ (sing., pl., respectively) prefix in Setswana usually designates someone as foreign, different or outside the community, and is

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often employed to refer to all others whom Tswana consider beneath them. It is not just used for ethnic groups but for any group or profession that seems to be set apart from average folks.

Connotations of being foreign in the designation lekgoa explain the annoyance white Batswana express if they are called by this term. In Indonesia, Fechter (2005: 98) describes long-term white expatriates resenting being referred to as the generic bule, much in the same way that being called lekgoa, and in this way being grouped with all other white people, undermines the sense of belonging and cultural competence that white Batswana feel they possess. Another important aspect of the race issue for white Batswana is a distinct element of defensiveness regarding accusations of racism. This stems from the difficulty of inhabiting a subject position that is widely critiqued. In Botswana, Russell and Russell (1979: 118) describe the pervasive stereotype, that continues to this day, of Afrikaners as ‘ignorant, brutish and stupid’. Du Preez (2003: 13) takes this a step further, claiming Afrikaners are the ‘the single most hated and resented ethnic group in the world’. Even as an English-descended white African, Richard’s sensitivity to these kinds of perceptions in the international community is evident: I tell you what, one of the things I relish about Africa is the common community; the connections you have with people. I go out to my plot, which is far from anywhere … I’ve had no influence there, but already three times today I was stopped. “Hey, Richie, what’s up? Hey! When are you starting? How is your farm? When you getting it? Where you going?” And you don’t find that elsewhere. You know, be judgemental, be white from Africa, be somebody who is framed as generally – South Africa’s right here – as a racist … But in the places where they’re saying “sorry” [i.e., Australia], and they’re doing everything, I mean the people still can’t live together. You come here, people do live together. They just do. There’s shit, but the people live together. At the end of the day, everybody can still put down their shit. And only in Botswana, hey, not in any of the other countries. There’s your magic.

As a brief aside, Crowley (1999: 31) describes belonging as measured by ‘the test of people’s capacity to be fellow citizens [as] implicitly formulated as their ability to ‘live together’ – in some supposedly relevant non-political sense’. In Richard’s statement is a strong affirmation that he sees the various ethnic groups in Botswana as living together in a functional manner. Yet, while black and white certainly work side by side effectively, and engage positively in the public sphere, I reiterate that social integration on a more personal level remains limited. Evident

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in this discord is Richard’s subscription to Anderson’s (1983) notion of ‘imagined community’: It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nations will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion … It is imagined as a community because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship. (Anderson 1983: 6–7, emphasis in original)

Returning to the issue of defensiveness, in this statement, Richard speaks in defiance of the common stereotype of white Africans as racists. Through their work, white Batswana are in constant contact with international tourists, and they are well aware of the negative assumptions made about white Africans (cf. Crapanzano 1985: 200). He points out that in other places, such as Australia, there are equally egregious histories of subjugation along racial lines. He suggests that those conflicts are being addressed on the level of politically correct rhetoric, such as in Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s 2008 apology to Indigenous Australians, but not in day-to-day practice. This he contrasts to Botswana where the people do not necessarily ‘talk the talk’ in the same way, but just get on with living together. (Having witnessed the interracial dynamics in Australia over a lifetime, and in Botswana during the course of my research, I tend to agree with much of Richard’s comparative analysis.) Raftopoulos (2007: 182) describes ‘deep historical reservoirs of antipathy to colonial and racial subjugation’ held by citizens of southern Africa. Hand in hand with this condemnation of colonialism are assumptions that white Africans are pervasively racist. Frequently encountering such stereotypes of African whites, and the frustration this elicits when they define themselves as uniquely non-racist in southern Africa, leads to this defensiveness about issues of race among white Batswana. A consistent theme in my many discussions with black and white Batswana is that race relations are becoming worse over time. The intimacy permitted by the small size of the community, and the very small ratio of white to other citizens, was central to the sense of acceptance white Batswana felt in times gone by. This notion is corroborated by Shack (1979: 10), who argues that ‘[s]mallness of scale, rather than ethnicity or race, would appear to be a more decisive factor in defining the attitudes of receptivity by African hosts toward strangers’. White Batswana attribute growing racism to the expansion of the community and particularly to the great influx of white expatriates working in the

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tourism industry. Racist attitudes are said to be imported with the many expatriates deriving from South Africa. When Batswana are treated badly, they then develop negative attitudes towards white people, and thus the cycle perpetuates. In addition, there is resentment of the economic success of white people and their monopolising of the upper level positions within the tourism industry. A belief in the growth of racial segregation in the Okavango is corroborated by historian Malgorzata Dziewiecka (1996: 63), who suggests that the early white traders were very much integrated within the African community, while subsequent generations have become more alienated and are, at times, explicitly racist. The falling rates of Setswana linguistic adeptness among white citizens further evidence this change. In this new environment, ‘black’ and ‘white’ are becoming increasingly meaningful categories. I asked Cedric if he feels that he is treated differently by Batswana as a citizen relative to expatriates, to which he responded: Ja, we do to a point. But ultimately now it’s getting back to black and white. And that’s just purely because it’s something that’s evolved, and now it’s just going to get bigger and bigger. That’s why if you have any conflict here with black and white – it’s racial. Ten years ago it wasn’t; it was just conflict.

Tshepo supports this notion, describing increasing incidences of Batswana mobilising a discourse of racial disenfranchisement in the workplace: It’s about the way you look at it. See, if the boss says no to me, I won’t think he’s saying this because I’m black. I’ll think he is saying no, because he can’t. But some people will turn around and use the race card, and that irritates me. Instead of finding out the facts and saying, “okay, maybe I’m incompetent”, they’re going to say, “no, he’s racist”. You just have to move on. This is not South Africa! We’ve always been an independent country, but the fact that black people use racism as a scapegoat irritates me. Work hard! Stop saying you’re not getting this because people are racist.

While many other Batswana describe having experienced racism in the tourism industry, Tshepo is adamant that she has never been discriminated against on account of being black. Yet, racialised thinking is by all accounts on the rise in the Okavango, which could potentially have substantial implications for white Batswana belonging if it continues to develop in this trajectory.

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Citizenship Trumping Race within Negative Stereotypes As alluded to in Tshepo’s comments, there is a pervasive stereotype among both black and white that Batswana have a poor work ethic and are at times lazy and lacking in initiative. This is couched, however, less in racial than in cultural/national terms – although the two are at times conflated. Those from the Tswana polities are seen as lazy, while Zimbabweans and minorities that have migrated to Botswana from other parts of Africa, such as the HaMbukushu and Kalanga, are praised as hard-working (cf. Nyamnjoh 2006: 159–60). Such perceptions have even reached the global community. In the most recent State of the Nation Address (GoB 2013, point 27) the President stated that the World Economic Forum’s report on global competitiveness identifies the major barrier to conducting business in Botswana as ‘poor work ethic in the national labour force’. The local newspaper, the Ngami Times, regularly features comment on the issue. In one such instance, journalist Kay Malela (2007: 13) writes: ‘It’s no secret that most jobs from gardeners, babysitters, housekeepers to hairdressers are taken up by young Zimbabwean women’. She describes a survey where the majority of Batswana interviewed preferred employing Zimbabweans over local Batswana, as they believed the former were harder workers. Malela suggests that, in any case, many Batswana find menial work beneath them, and so refuse to do it. People elucidate all manner of theories to support the stereotype of Batswana being lazy. One 35-year-old MoTawana man laughingly told me that the extreme heat in Botswana renders it necessary to work slowly prior to resting and recovering for hours. (This man does not practice what he preaches, however, and his hard work has seen him climb the tourism ladder to manage some of the most elite lodges in the delta.) A 55-year-old white Motswana man purported a similar view regarding the Bushmen: Because it’s going over millions of years, there must be some kind of genetic thing. Because the people who survive are the people who are adapted best. And in the Kalahari, you can’t be a hard worker because you will just die, because it’s too hot. So you have to kind of reserve your energy, you know. So Westerners will come and say they’re lazy, but they aren’t lazy, they are preserving their energy.

Inherent in this evolutionary hypothesising is the belief that the natural environment strongly impacts social and cultural development, an idea white Batswana strongly support.

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Interestingly, white Batswana also include themselves in this cultural trope. They pride themselves on having a ‘chilled out’ attitude relative to the overly ambitious drive attributed to expatriates. In Richard’s words: We are a very lazy nation, we’ve never had to do anything, and there’s no drive for anything. We are a completely spoiled nation. Government spoils the country, looks after people. Nobody is going to die of starvation here, and there’s money floating around. People are fine. So there’s that lethargy about trying to get things going.

Richard’s use of the collective ‘we’ suggests his inclusion in the paradigm. In addition, he refers here to another theory frequently expounded to explain the alleged laziness of Batswana. This is that citizens possess a sense of entitlement to a share from the huge economic success the nation has enjoyed since discovering diamonds (cf. Nyamnjoh 2006: 2, 20–21, 163). His claim that people are ‘fine’ and that starvation is non-existent is unfortunately not entirely true, however. The Botswana Family Health Survey found that for the year 2007 (when Richard and I had this conversation) malnutrition was an ongoing issue affecting 13 per cent of children aged five and younger, with 26 per cent classed as ‘stunted’ in their height relative to age, and 7.2 per cent defined as ‘wasted’ or too thin for their height (GoB and UN 2010: 22). Of the nation’s total population, the survey found 13.5 per cent to be underweight; and these figures were all vast improvements on previous years (GoB and UN 2010: 22). Richard’s rose-coloured prognosis stems in part from the distance from poverty his privilege affords him, but more so from the broader paradigm of white Batswana extolling the virtues, while downplaying the negative issues, affecting their nation. Time and again I encountered such overly optimistic portrayals of Botswana from its citizens, both black and white, yet these constructions at times bear little relation to the realities on the ground. To return to the matter of stereotypes, while pejorative assumptions about Batswana persist, they are also praised for the same qualities construed in a different light. White citizens’ sense of security within Botswana is influenced by Batswana’s cultural tendency to solve issues peaceably. Richard’s uncle, for example, describes Batswana as a ‘passive’ people, whose lack of a ‘warrior culture’ saw them pushed off fertile lands in the precolonial period and into the arid Kalahari region. This ‘easy-going’ culture is described as precisely that which allows whites a legitimate place in the nation. Moreover, while some criticise, many other white employers praise their Batswana staff. One mobile safari company owner who has an all-Batswana staff described his employees as: ‘a

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cut above the rest; proud and yet relaxed’. Regardless of the veracity of these stereotypes, they demonstrate the ways in which national identities trump race in some spheres.

Speaking Setswana and Acculturation of Tswana Ways In addition to the alleged passivity, there are a number of other Tswana cultural ways that have been assimilated into white Batswana values and practices. Zenker (2011: 71–72) describes a clear relationship between acculturation and autochthony constructs, suggesting that even in states engaging civic citizenship models ‘“individualised autochthony” links the individual, territory, and group in such a way that shared culture and/ or descent are likely to follow from place of birth and/or residence’. The presence of some shared cultural patterns does not lead, however, to a situation of homogeneity. The Tswana ways that have been acculturated into white Batswana practices are those that are the most culturally analogous, as well as the most instrumental, within the social and physical environments of the Okavango. This reflects the practice within settler societies that Dominy (2001: 209) describes as a process of ‘constructing indigeneity’, where communities create new cultural forms through merging aspects of the country of origin with those of the country of settlement to forge new composite identities, values, beliefs and practices. The most obvious evidence of acculturation is the use of Setswana. Prior to Independence, when the white community formed a tiny proportion of the Okavango’s population, Setswana was learnt concurrently with English. This was not really a matter of volition, but was a necessary function of living in a region where English was very limited in its use. This knowledge, therefore, was an inevitable outcome of the emplacement of white citizens. In the contemporary period, older white Batswana invariably speak Setswana in their interactions with Batswana, and at times among themselves. On a Friday evening, sitting at a pub frequented predominantly by expatriate pilots and office-based tourism operators, I sat with two white Motswana hunters in their late sixties, along with a number of expatriates. The old hunters switched from English to Setswana to make jokes to each other – often at the expense of the expatriates around them – and to engage in friendly repartee with the Batswana bar staff. Speaking fluent Setswana is seen as indicative of close connections to the local community and the nation, and it is greatly admired by those lacking in such skills. This is particularly on account of the complexity of the Setswana language, where its ‘deep’ variants are constituted by figurative and metaphoric referents that are only comprehensible to those with

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intimate knowledge of Tswana parables, mythology and cultural values and practices. Consider these statements of a white Motswana woman and Cedric, both in their fifties, about their fathers: Woman: He loved his time in this part of the world, and then when Botswana got independence, he took out citizenship. He speaks Setswana so well that he knows all the different dialects. When he hears someone speak, he can tell you which area they’re from, and he speaks all the different dialects. Cedric: When my father died, he died in ’85, even then he thought these were wonderful people. I used to fight with him about these fucking okes [South African derived slang meaning ‘men’] getting on my nerves, and he’d always stand up for them and say, “but you’ve just got to understand that that’s how they are”. In fact my father was almost like them; spoke every single language that exists here. Every single one of the dialects. Ja, he was one of them.

The first statement describes the woman’s father voluntarily giving up his South African citizenship in order to become a Motswana. His skill in Setswana implies his love for and commitment to his adopted country and people. The second statement, while again linking Setswana language skills with deep belonging, has a very different tone. Evident in Cedric’s statement is frustration and bemusement with his father’s respect and tolerance for the culturally different ways of the BaTawana. Juxtaposed with his description of his father’s language prowess is the fact that he identifies his father, negatively, as ‘one of them’. Cedric was born and raised in Maun and is the only white Motswana I encountered who claimed to wish to leave the country permanently. He says he is entirely disenchanted with the place and, as is clear in his statement above, he holds some very negative perceptions of both the black and white local people. It is not coincidental that Cedric disrespects the broader population and desires to emigrate. Cedric’s negative feelings demonstrate that a sense of connection to the broader community is an important component to a strong sense of belonging. One’s political views and values are central to one’s desire (or otherwise) to connect to the diverse groups one lives among (Yuval-Davis 2004: 217). Cedric’s case is also illustrative of the complexity of the relationship between emplacement and belonging. While not on par with his father’s level of fluency, Cedric’s linguistic adeptness in Setswana is clear, and I never heard him speak anything but Setswana in engaging with Batswana. His is an interesting case in that he is deeply emplaced, yet

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claims he does not belong. His lack of belonging may be a case of intimacy leading to conscious distancing. Unlike many men of his era who were educated in South African boarding schools, he attended primary and secondary school in Maun and grew up in a relatively poor family, whose lifestyle had much in common with the local Batswana. The similarity to Batswana may be the cause of his need to distance himself, as Harrison’s (2003) theory of identification against resemblance would suggest. While Cedric actively distances himself from the kinds of articulations of belonging of other white Batswana, I am not proposing that he eschews his national identity. He is deeply emplaced and is well aware of this. As Robbins (1998: 104) rightly argues ‘one can both hold a national identity and harbor extremely negative views of the nation of which one is a part’. The Setswana linguistic adeptness described tends to be characteristic of older community members. The younger generations are less consistently fluent in Setswana, primarily owing to decreased necessity. At Independence in 1966, English was declared the official language (with Setswana the national language) and this, in conjunction with increased access to education and the growth in the tourism industry in the Okavango, means English is now widely spoken in the public sphere. White Batswana who are not fluent in Setswana frequently express regret on this front. While watching a young white baby playing with her Motswana nanny at a party, one man in his thirties, for example, suggested his lack of Setswana fluency stemmed from the fact that his mother had raised him alone. Rather than praising her efforts, he articulated regret that he had not had the opportunity to learn Setswana from a Motswana nanny in early childhood. White Batswana such as this man, who are not fluent, still possess a substantial Setswana vocabulary. White Batswana’s everyday speech is peppered with Setswana words. People commonly greet each other in Setswana, often referring to older white women, for example, using the respectful Setswana term mosadi mogolo. This example is interesting as it points to the Tswana norm of respecting elders. Gulbrandsen’s (2012: 173) description of Tswana maturation and status could equally be applied to white Batswana: ‘adulthood involves the gradual achievement of seniority, determined by genealogical position, age and personal capacity (oratorical skills and an ability to accumulate knowledge)’. Relative to the cult of youth in the West, the esteem held for elders is clearly evident in the respectful way white Batswana speak to and about older people, and in the ongoing valued role they play in all aspects of community life. That bush knowledge and experience is cumulative over time is undoubtedly central to this respect.

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In addition to language, there are a number of other elements of acculturation evident. Certain aspects of Tswana embodied culture are adopted by white citizens. Tswana people use numerous hand signals in their communications, many of which white Batswana have incorporated into daily life. To say ‘nothing/it is finished’, for example, white Batswana say ‘ga gona’, while moving their hand in a back-and-forth sideways movement with the palm facing up. When people greet each other formally, they shake hands with the right hand while the left hand grips their own right-hand forearm, as a sign of respect. Other shared cultural patterns, such as similar diet and the use of thatch in housing, are attributable to shared environmental conditions (cf. Russell and Russell 1979: 138). Beyond these readily tangible examples are more complex shared values and practices. After a funeral, Richard pointed out to me that the roles taken on by community members – from food preparation to childminding to the digging and preparation of the gravesite – resembled the BaTawana way. He describes the strong sense of interdependence and support that is characteristic of the Maun community as having been learned from the BaTawana. In addition, the value placed by white Batswana on ‘making a plan’ reflects the Tswana value of boipelego, or self-reliance. The postcolonial state has strongly emphasised the value of liberal individualism and entrepreneurialism through promoting traditional notions of boipelego, and the Tswana (and white Batswana) elite have mobilised such qualities in taking advantage of the state’s many development policies and opportunities (Gulbrandsen 2012: 204). The great cultural significance attributed to the practice of storytelling is a further common feature among the region’s various ethnic communities. The Tswana are renowned for their tradition of reciting maboko, formal praise poetry, and also have a strong narrative culture (Morton 2011). Among the BaTawana particularly, maboko and formally structured stories are less common than individualised narratives (Tlou 1971: 85). Storytelling similarly holds a central place in white Batswana sociality. Their narrative style typifies the kinds of practices shared across many oral cultures in that they utilise various verbal techniques, including ‘elaboration, repetition, exaggeration and metaphor’ (Edwards and Sienkewicz 1990: 141). In the course of the ten day trans-Okavango boat trip in which I participated, Luke and Mark spent much of each day engaged in storytelling. Each morning we would rise from our tents at sunrise, rekindle the fire and sit around talking, joking and drinking coffee (which Luke augmented with a few gulps of whisky) for at least two hours. Luke and Mark told story after story, and joke after joke, many of which we heard several times a day, and which they found increasingly hilarious with every telling. A visiting tourist commented on this

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in regard to white Batswana generally: ‘They do tell the same stories, to the same people, over and over again! But people still laugh just as much the second and third time around; they don’t seem to mind hearing it over and over again. They don’t pull the other person up on it and say, “heard that one!”’. What I found particularly interesting was the way Mark encouraged Luke to tell stories fully, asking questions to which he already knew the answers, and in this way drawing out as much context and detail as possible. Tlou (1971: 85) describes how in the process of collecting oral histories, the BaTawana would similarly correct each other and ‘check on each other’s information, and also remind one another of salient facts’. Not only does white Batswana narrative culture resemble that of African oral practices, but storytelling sessions are at times sites of strong cross-cultural connection. One evening at a local bar such an occasion arose when a white Motswana visiting from the south sat catching up with old friends from Maun. Stories of common friends, places and experiences were shared for several hours among the group that was made up of a Wayeyi family, several white Batswana, a MoNgwaketse woman, myself and a few other Batswana. Stories switched from Setswana to English and back again, and it was one of the most relaxed, warm exchanges of a diverse social group I witnessed during my time in the field. One of the white Motswana men commented to me afterwards how much he values such experiences. There are also BaTawana institutions, such as the kgotla, that white Batswana utilise, albeit in a fairly limited way. Large numbers of white Batswana will attend major occasions at the royal Maun kgotla, such as the swearing in of a new Kgosi. A handful of white Motswana men above the age of sixty are regulars at standard kgotla meetings, where government officials visit to disseminate information concerning state policy, and these whites engage in debates where relevant. Those white Batswana who use the kgotla to address their own issues remain in the minority, however, with most feeling more comfortable dealing with problems themselves or using the court system for serious matters. One white Motswana man took a white Motswana woman well known for her obnoxious manner to the kgotla for addressing him with abusive language. The Chief issued a stern warning to the woman to desist in using such language. While this incident became a source of considerable amusement to the white community, accusations of insult are taken seriously by the Tswana, ‘where there is so much concern with respectful behaviour’ (Gulbrandsen 2012: 182). On the flipside, Batswana see the kgotla as an institution relevant in protecting their rights in interactions with white business owners. Ronny, the MoTawana barman, explained to me that he

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knew his rights and that he would not accept poor treatment in the workplace. He described a conflict he had experienced with his previous boss in a safari company, where he did not feel he was being respected. He said that he was not being paid enough to be treated poorly, so he confronted his boss, they talked, and the situation improved. Ronny said that had it not, he would have taken his boss to the kgotla to mediate the dispute. Participation in the kgotla has unquestionably waned across the generations, with few, if any, young white Batswana regularly attending. This is a pattern shared to an extent among Batswana broadly. The growth of state mechanisms has resulted in the lessening influence of traditional tribal structures and a reduction of the powers of the kgotla. Only matters of little financial significance tend to be taken to the kgotla in the contemporary period, with the remainder levied as civil cases within the courts. Modernity has also precipitated shifting cultural structures and values. Participation in the formal workforce means that people are not readily able to take the time away from work to attend the lengthy kgotla sessions. Just after I left the field, however, two white male citizens (one in his twenties, the other in his early thirties) married expatriate women, and both couples had two ceremonies: one with a celebrant, friends and family, and the other in the kgotla. This is not a legal requirement, and for both couples the ratification of their marriages in the kgotla required patience, as it took a full day of predominantly waiting around to be achieved. Voluntary participation in this rite indicates a certain level of ongoing respect for local institutions, and can also be interpreted as a performance of localness, serving to demonstrate publicly the deep belonging of the individuals concerned. Even while attendance at kgotla has diminished, many white Batswana continue to cultivate relationships with their ward headmen, who they at times turn to for help and guidance. A 34-year-old white Motswana lodge owner’s home was burgled one weekend in May 2007; his fourth burglary that year. His mother told him to go to the police, but he said ‘why would I bother standing there for two hours to get nothing done?’ Instead he went to talk to his local headman to ask for help, as he believed it was people within the ward who were robbing him. (It eventually transpired that the thief was employed by the man as a gardener/maintenance man, and had worked for him for five years, during which time he had staged numerous break-ins.) While the headman was unable to help owing to the particular circumstances, this is an instance where state mechanisms are seen by white Batswana as less effective than traditional power structures in addressing certain issues. Most white Batswana attach themselves to their ward headmen in such a way, and turn to them for help when required. In turn, headmen and other members of the ward will seek

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assistance from white Batswana residents in the form of lifts into town, as almost all whites own vehicles, where not all Batswana are so fortunate. Batswana also seek advice on matters of illness, schooling and sundry other matters. (As white Batswana tend to have greater opportunities in terms of education and employment, they are often approached to provide such advice.) One white Motswana man serves his headman by maintaining the graveyard of the headman’s family, which happens to adjoin his plot. Relationships between white Batswana and their ward headmen thus tend to be characterised by the mutual seeking and provision of aid and assistance. Among white Batswana, those individuals fluent in Setswana and possessing extensive experience and knowledge of Tswana culture are spoken of with great respect. One such Motswana man grew up in a small village in south-east Botswana with his missionary parents. With no other white people living in the village, and his parents often absent in the course of their missionary work, he grew up very much in the way of the local people. Community members speak about him and other whites with similar experiences as being ‘true Batswana’, reinforcing the notion that one needs to be culturally Tswana in order to achieve full belonging. He describes himself as a ‘chameleon’, with the ability to blend seamlessly into any community in the country. He identifies culturally as Tswana and possesses not only common, but also esoteric knowledge, such as traditional healing (cf. Draper 1998: 822 on the ‘white Zulu’). He counts among his friends an equal mix of black and white. The significance of this man’s position is less in his ability to permeate boundaries, than the respect people of both communities hold for him. This respect is premised not only on his qualities as a particularly kind, affable, capable individual, but it is precisely his transgression of boundaries that is admired. This is interesting in that it contrasts with the condemnation of the boundary crossing in the form of interracial marriage, which is largely disparaged. Cultures may mix, it appears, but preferably not bodies. Individuals such as this man are exceptions, however, and notwithstanding the cultural borrowing I have described, white Batswana unquestionably remain culturally distinct. Their bush orientation, particularly, places them in an interesting position vis-à-vis the politically dominant BaTawana. In Tswana epistemology, ‘the uncultivated wilderness’ is held in stark contrast to the highly concentrated Tswana villages (Gulbrandsen 2012: 181). The Tswana have traditionally belittled those people they have seen as living in the wilderness among the animals; namely, the Wayeyi, Kgalagadi and particularly the Bushmen, to whom the BaTawana attribute the lowest social standing (Tlou 1977: 376). The highly modernist orientation of the BaTawana and other Tswana groups lends itself

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to dichotomised values where the urban, modern realm is valorised, while the bush is seen as a place for primitive and backward people. As Solway (2009: 331) describes, ‘in “traditional” Tswana geography, the Bushmen inhabit the “beyond”. Physically, along with the animals, they reside in the undomesticated and wild landscape of the “bush”, beyond the village, the agricultural fields and even the cattle-posts’. The government’s controversial resettlement of the Bushmen in villages outside of the CKGR was justified in such terms: Vice-President Mogae referred, in 1996, to the inhabitants of the CKGR as “stone age creature[s]”, who were doomed to “die out like the dodo” if they failed to fall in with official plans for their development. Five years later, the views expressed by Foreign Minister Lt.-General Merafhe, were similarly patronizing: “Our treatment of the Basarwa dictates that they should be elevated from a status where they find themselves … We all aspire to Cadillacs and would be concerned with any tribe to remain in the bush communing with flora and fauna”. (Good 2008: 124)

The social evolutionary viewpoint exemplified by this stance suggests the attribution of primitivism and inferiority to a bush-dwelling existence. This, in theory, should be extended to white Batswana; however, the tourist dollars they earn via their bush-based lifestyles, as well as the cultural capital accrued through association with the cosmopolitan tourists, counters, I believe, their tainting by the Tswana with this brush. At least, it does to an extent. Outside Riley’s Garage in Maun one day, I was chatting to an elderly white Motswana professional hunter, when an old friend of his, a wealthy MoTawana man dressed immaculately in business attire, came over and starting bantering with his friend. Amid much laughter, and before an equally extensive mutual praise session, they teased and insulted each other robustly, with the MoTawana man calling the white man, among other things, Makoba. This is a derogatory term used by the BaTawana to refer to the Wayeyi, who are known as ‘swamp people’ on account of traditionally living in the delta’s islands and floodplains. I was intrigued to hear this term applied to a white hunter, where it indicates disdain for his bush-based livelihood. Hunting is looked down upon by the Tswana in relation to the more ‘civilised’ livelihood of cattle rearing (Solway 1994: 259–60). Even while the spoils of the hunt have historically been of high value to the Tswana, their procurement has largely been delegated to those ethnic groups seen as embodying the lowly status and poverty normatively associated with dependence on hunting as a livelihood strategy (Morton and Hitchcock 2013: 5). In reply to the MoTawana man’s taunts,

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the white hunter said the Okavango was Wayeyi land, and that they had been in the region far longer than the MoTawana’s man’s people, who derived from a small, ugly, desert village where people only bathe once a month ... and so the well-rehearsed banter continued. White Batswana’s ‘neoprimitive’ white culture (to borrow Gerald Pocius’s 2000 [1991]: 22 term) – characterised by deep identification with the bush and wildlife, bush-based livelihoods, a lack of materialism and relatively egalitarian values – sets them firmly apart from the dominant BaTawana, with their hierarchical society and highly modernist, consumerist and urban orientations (Gulbrandsen 2012: 134). Consequently, while white Batswana’s relative wealth and privilege may largely afford them immunity from the lowly status attributed to the Wayeyi and Bushmen on account of being ‘bush people’, their values and lifestyles are still seen as undesirable by many BaTawana. Herein lies that which white Batswana would suggest is a critical factor preventing them from closer social integration with members of the region’s other ethnic groups. The BaTawana are their most likely companions, as they share relative privilege in terms of educational opportunities and socioeconomic position, yet, their modernism and consumerist aspirations are at odds with white Batswana’s bush preoccupation. The Bushmen and Wayeyi, on the other hand, share white Batswana’s bushbased lifestyle, yet their historical disadvantage and lack of opportunity in terms of education has resulted in their having very different experiences to the cosmopolitan white Batswana. It is these ruptures between class and cultural values and practices that white Batswana argue have determined their limited social integration, which they staunchly deny is the outcome of racial prejudice. A number of white Batswana expressed to me their sadness that they did not enjoy closer friendships across ethnic lines. This is a cause for regret not least as deep integration into the broader community is implicitly understood as leading to higher levels of belonging, as with the man described above as a chameleon. Belonging remains an existential quandary for the white Batswana precisely because of the social distance between themselves and their compatriots. This distance appears to have grown over the years as the population has increased and the intimacy that previously characterised the community has given way to growing segregation between groups of divergent interests and preoccupations. Yet, white Batswana are certainly not inclined to change their ways in order to attempt to integrate further with the BaTawana or others. Miller (2003a) critiques approaches to belonging by settler cultures that are characterised by efforts to emulate or, worse still, appropriate the cultural patterns of the local indigenous population. She does so on the grounds of

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the potentially negative implications for indigenous people, as well as the lack of ontological transparency of those claiming to be something they are not. In her view, belonging requires full transparency, self-knowledge and acceptance. In this vein, white Batswana belonging is supported by their claims to being comfortable in their alterity. I asked Richard if it was in any way challenging, particularly as a teenager, being culturally and physically different to the majority of people in his community, to which he responded: No, not at all. It was just, if you grow up like this, it’s how you grow up. It’s normal just to be who we are, just to be a white Motswana, hey. I don’t think you should try and be something you’re not. It’s one thing understanding what’s going on and that, but we’ve always been, [we have] grown up differently.

Similarly, Grace described her perspective: I don’t feel disadvantaged, I don’t feel bad, I don’t feel excluded, I don’t feel inferior, I don’t feel threatened in any way because I’m white. A lot of white South Africans are almost scared of their whiteness at the moment. And I think the same for a lot of Rhodesians, they feel quite betrayed and very unsure and quite sort of scared, and they are not comfortable as to how they fit in to what is their home. My view of myself as a white person living in Africa, and the whole integration and race issue, is that I am white, and I am not apologetic for it. I have quite Anglo customs and ways, and I’m not going to pretend that I eat seswa [a Tswana shredded meat dish] every night, and that I speak fluent Setswana – although I’m trying to get there – but I’m not going to pretend that I’m one of the homies, you know, and I’m quite comfortable with that.

While recognising the cultural differences between themselves and the majority Batswana, Richard and Grace feel there is acceptance and respect across cultures. As Vanclay (2008: 9) suggests: ‘Community cohesion does not refer to the homogeneity of a community, but rather the level of tolerance and goodwill’. Most white Batswana feel goodwill is extended to them, and, as a consequence, white Batswana state that they feel comfortable in their skin. This comfort follows from their privileged position in society, for, as Solway (2011: 233) rightly posits, ‘[t]he right to enjoy one’s culture is a consequence of power just as economic and political empowerment are a consequence of cultural recognition’.

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Conclusion Belonging through Community Connections Identity politics in the Okavango are played out at the intersections of race, ethnicity, class and citizenship. For white Batswana, belonging is both augmented and contested through the conflations of these various identity categories, and their relationships with the diverse communities within Ngamiland. Social integration between black and white remains limited, with interracial marriage, and even very close friendships across racial lines, remaining the exception and not the norm. Cultural differences are cited as responsible for this social distance, demonstrating a kind of conflation of culture with notions of race. Through such constructions, white Batswana feel their claims to living in a society largely devoid of racism are supportable. This is as racism is defined by white Batswana as concerning how you treat people, whereas conceiving of people in terms of patterns of cultural values and practices, while drawing fairly rigid boundaries between such divergent groups, is seen as legitimate and tends not to be recognised as part of a pattern of racialised thinking. While community members from all backgrounds report that racism is on the increase, relationships between black and white citizens remain for the most part characterised by civility within a public culture encouraging the respectful treatment of people and the suppression of negative sentiments. White Batswana’s strong distancing from and scapegoating of other white African populations on the grounds of racism suggests a tacit understanding that their belonging is contingent on the continued goodwill of the majority. The value they accord to non-racialism can thus be seen as a means of ensuring this goodwill continues to be extended.

Conclusion Making a Plan to Belong

K In her treatise on the suffering of the exiled, French philosopher Simone Weil (1952 [1949]: 41) famously asserts that ‘[t]o be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul’. Weil’s notion that there is a lack of recognition of the significance of emplacement arises out of a certain complacency among those for whom the need to belong is unproblematically met. Questions of belonging and emplacement are for the most part raised concerning minority groups, migrants, exiles, settlers and others whose position in a nation is potentially unstable. Yet, in recent times, the flow of people across national boundaries, and competition over limited resources, has led to the increased significance of questions of belonging for dominant groups along with minorities. As Ceuppens and Geschiere (2005: 387) point out, ‘belonging promises safety, but in practice it raises fierce disagreement over who “really” belongs – over whose claims are authentic and whose are not’. In this sense, inherent to belonging is always the potential for its opposites: insecurity, alienation and exclusion. As a minority group associated with a history of racially determined privilege, white Batswana occupy a precarious position. In light of this inherent insecurity, a number of their cultural values and practices can be interpreted as a means to cement emplacement in the Okavango. Or, in other words, white Batswana can be seen to be ‘making a plan’ to belong. They are not alone in this orientation. Of the politics of belonging in Africa more broadly, Hilgers (2011: 49) describes how the ‘manipulation

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of belonging and the act of investing in this capital are ways, among others, of securitizing the conditions of life’. Among white Batswana this is manifest in: the particular criteria they emphasise in determining autochthonous ties to place and legitimacy of belonging; the construction of frontier-reminiscent cultural practices and collective identity as inseparable from the Okavango; their frequently expressed patriotism; their professed aversion to racism and ongoing efforts to foster positive community relationships; and the low profile they keep relative to expatriates in the economic sphere.

Criteria for Claiming Autochthony Within discourses of political autochthony, varying criteria are mobilised by different groups in staking claims to belonging. In Botswana, the Bushmen claim a unique relationship to place premised in their longstanding ancestral links to the territory of present-day Botswana, albeit with little state recognition. By contrast, through discourses of nationalism, the Tswana assert authentic belonging based on their political dominance and role in state building. A consequence of the Tswana’s emphasis on the nation-state model in determining autochthony is that the possibility for belonging has been opened up, at least in theory, to all citizens. Jean and John Comaroff (2001: 648) describe how in emphasising otherness in nationalistic terms, discourses of autochthony have provided ‘a versatile call to arms, uniting people long divided by class, colour and culture’. In Botswana, the state has argued for the conflation of the concept of autochthony with citizenship through declaring that ‘all Batswana are indigenous to the country, except those who may have acquired citizenship by registration’ (Minister Butale cited in Saugestad 2001: 52). White Batswana have certainly embraced this opportunity for legitimacy in belonging. Like other minority groups, white citizens emphasise the significance of experiential autochthony within discourses of belonging. They believe that growing up in the Okavango, having close community connections and an intimate knowledge of the local environment together constitute belonging. As Richard said to the African-American tourist: ‘I was born here, and I live here, and I grew up here. I speak the language, and I know the people and they all know me, and I have a home here’. For white Batswana, belonging is using your omang to prove your identity, rather than the foreign passport toted around by expatriates. It is about reminiscing about the good old days when there were no tarred roads or telephones or televisions, and lions wandered through town. It is about

Conclusion: Making a Plan to Belong  •  215

blue skies, baking heat, the smell of wild sage and the taste of dust in your mouth. It is about defying the camel thorns by walking around bare foot. It is about taking forty-five minutes to buy a loaf of bread because you run into so many people you know. It is about being in the bush, passing a termite mound, and remembering the time you saw a leopard with cubs resting in its shade. It is about drinking whisky and arguing over Land Rovers versus Toyotas for hours, and having the freedom to drive home afterwards without getting arrested. It is about making jokes in Setswana with Batswana colleagues at the expense of clumsy tourists. It is about drinking beer and waiting for the flood. Through constructing autochthony as fundamentally revolving around lived experience, white Batswana have developed strong senses of belonging.

Belonging Past, Present and Future Further strategies for belonging are white Batswana’s selective construction of history, and their strong embrace of nationalism. White Batswana do not see themselves as settlers, but merely as migrants. Through reference to the far more egregious colonial impacts in neighbouring nations, they are able to overlook their own ancestors’ privilege in the protectorate years. In the contemporary period, they downplay the fairly pronounced social segregation by attributing it to cultural and class differences, while seeing themselves as non-racist and part of a heterogeneous community that contributes to the development of those less fortunate. Their frequently articulated patriotism and embrace of national symbols are overt performances of their commitment to the nation in which they feel strongly emotionally invested. Belonging is also strengthened through the development of particular cultural values. While white Batswana see their frontier cultural beliefs and practices as shaped by the natural environment, I suggest they can also be read as a means to enhance belonging. White Batswana emphasise: the embodied skills and knowledge required for work in the bush; the narrative culture through which emplaced identity is performed; a love of freedom that they believe the Okavango expanses allow; and the value placed on risk and excitement that is integral to lives led among dangerous wildlife. The Okavango landscape and wildlife are central to their identity, culture and economy, and their constant articulation of their love of the land is a means of expressing and claiming their senses of emplacement and parochial connections. Furthermore, creating a livelihood out of this much-loved environment through photographic and hunting safaris situates white Batswana locally, and orientates them

216  •  At Home in the Okavango

globally, allowing them to define themselves against the palpably foreign tourist ‘other’, rather than the Batswana, the unquestioned autochthons, against whom their own authenticity may appear less convincing. In his insightful exploration of belonging, Crowley (1999: 25) points out that ‘those who do not belong to the people may be admitted on sufferance, as guests, subject to good behaviour’. While the relatively small percentage of citizens engaged in interracial marriages demonstrates the persistence of fairly deep-seated ideas of racial difference, the suppression of racist behaviour in the public sphere, and the pride expressed in that which is seen as mostly positive interracial relationships, can be read as the performance of ‘good behaviour’. White Batswana’s distress with and distancing from the increasing prevalence of racism, which they see as imported by expatriates, may well be attributed to an awareness that if they are associated with ‘bad behaviour’, they may not continue to be welcomed within the nation. Efforts to ensure an ongoing place in Botswana are also evident in terms of economic contribution. White people are valued for developing businesses that provide jobs, yet, if they are too successful, resentment builds. When I asked Cedric what he sees as the future of white people in Botswana, his prognosis was dire and articulated along economic lines: White people are not welcome. The Okavango in particular; this whole Maun area. All you have to do is drive around. Who owns Maun? White people. What kind of white people? Expats. There’s a good reason for that, but it doesn’t change the fact that people who don’t have anything sit and watch what’s happening. It’s like everywhere else in Africa. They’re now repossessing all that farm land in Zimbabwe that’s been taken away ... And this place is heading the same way. I mean people don’t want to sit and be waiters in lodges. They want to walk into the office, and they want to own the lodge. It doesn’t matter that there’s ways and means; they want a fast forward button that takes them from ‘a’ to ‘z’.

These comments conform with the paradigm of denial of the kinds of structural inequalities that have resulted in white privilege and African disadvantage (cf. Pilossof 2012: 168 on Zimbabwean whites), yet they also reflect the particularities of the Botswana situation. Gulbrandsen (2012: 285) describes how directing young people into secondary schools and higher education which, combined with urbanization and consumerism, have generated strong aspirations for well-paid jobs. These are, however, aspirations that less and less can be met by the labour market, leaving many young, educated people with an acute discrepancy between aspirations and achievements.

Conclusion: Making a Plan to Belong  •  217

Cedric went on to say: You can feel it, I mean work permits [for expatriates] are getting harder and harder to get. You read the papers, and there are stories everywhere: little innuendos, little suggestions. What they’ll do, I think, ultimately is say: “Right, do you really want to be here? If you really want to be here set a bit of a price. If you’re only here because it’s the land of milk and honey for you, rather leave”.

Seen in this light, white Batswana’s cultural emphasis on anti-materialism and lack of great economic ambition serve to differentiate them from expatriates, who are resented and criticised for their privileged lifestyles and profit-making from the ‘land of milk and honey’. Through keeping a low profile economically relative to their expatriate counterparts, while still owning small businesses that provide some employment to local citizens, white Batswana again increase their chances of continued welcome in the nation. Cedric’s predictions for the future are by no means shared by all. Richard sees a much brighter future for the white community in Botswana: It’s completely different from anywhere. This is a totally pacifist culture. People would rather sit down and drink and talk about problems than fight over them. It’s different, hey. I mean I could never leave this place because it’s just too different and too interesting. I don’t think we are going to go like Zimbabwe. I think we’ve got a very sensible government, and I think that we probably will do for a long time still.

Generosity to minorities and immigrants is far more likely to be extended by the nation state and its citizens in times of abundance (Nyamnjoh 2006: 96). Consequently, the future for whites in Botswana is partially contingent on whether the nation continues to enjoy political stability and economic prosperity. While increasing rates of immigration – and the associated rise of xenophobic tendencies – the HIV/AIDS crisis, environmental problems related to climate change and a myriad of other economic and social factors may destabilise Botswana, the Okavango’s white citizens assert a strong sense of commitment, and feel that they will be able to weather any political and economic storms that lie ahead. To this end Grace described her relationship to her country of birth as follows: The thing is, this is home. I will stick it out through thick and thin. It’s like those Zimbabwean farmers who won’t leave Zimbabwe, and everyone says they’re mad, but they’re going, “well, this is home”. Thick or thin we are here because we are bound to it. It’s kind of like a marriage.

218  •  At Home in the Okavango

Through their emphasis on experiential autochthony, as expressed in the sense of deep love for and emplacement within the local environment, along with a sense of legitimacy within discourses of political autochthony, white Batswana will continue to invest their resourcefulness in ‘making a plan’ to deal with the challenges that arise, in order to maintain a place for themselves in the nation in the future.

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Index

abject poverty. See under poverty acculturation. See under Tswana African identity. See under white Batswana African miracle. See Botswana, African miracle African-American tourists, 74, 77, 83, 214 Afrikaans-speaking, 29, 46, 153, 179, 196 Afrikaners, 8, 29, 35, 46, 93, 96, 118, 130, 133, 159, 161, 162, 178, 179, 194–7 Afrobarometer survey, 17 AIDS. See HIV/AIDS alienation from the commons, 20. See also diamond wealth; hunting and gathering: alienation; Wayeyi: environmental alienation alterity segregation, social and racial, 23, 177, 179, 211 See also segregation Altman, I., 82 Angola, 1, 27, 30–31, 53, 160 anti-hunting. See under hunting anti-materialism, 72, 126, 129, 130, 132, 178, 210, 217 antiretroviral treatment. See HIV/ AIDS antitribalism, 24. See also postcolonialism: state discourse Asia, 48, 103, 181

autochthony, 8, 13, 69, 156, 157, 214 collectivised, 9 defining the Self against the Other, 12 individualised, 13 nativeness, 9, 14 See also belonging; experiential autochthony; political authochthony; politics of belonging BaKgalagadi (Bantu-language group), 27, 149, 151 BaKwena (Tswana subgroup), 34 Balopi Commission, 150–51. See also Tswana: dominance, public / political; Tswana: Tswana-centric governance; Tswana: suppression of minorities Banaba Letsatsi (local charity), 190 Banaba Naga (local charity ), 190 Bandeke, T., 102 BaMalete (Tswana subgroup), 28 BaNgwaketse (Tswana subgroup), 2, 4, 34, 35, 96, 127, 136, 156, 181–2, 206 BaNgwato (Tswana subgroup), 28, 153 BaNoka. See Xanekwe Bantu language groups, 8, 27–8, 192 Barnard, A., 8, 26, 27, 72, 158 BaRolong (Tswana subgroup), 28 Barth, F., 37, 178 Basarwa 26, 209. See also San

232 • Index

BaTawana (Tswana subgroup). See under Tawana BaTlokwa (Tswana subgroup), 28 BDP. See Botswana Democratic Party Bechuanaland protectorate (1885– 1966), 17, 23–4, 48, 113–14, 156, 158–63, 166, 173, 181, 185, 215 belonging, sense of (white Batswana) autochthony, 10, 11, 81, 214 BaTawana initiation, 152 citizenship, 10, 36, 37, 81, 147–8, 153, 163–4, 214 collective identity, 5, 14, 37, 110, 112, 117, 126, 127, 144, 172, 178, 191, 193, 214 community relations, 175–6, 191, 207–12, 214 definitions, 16–17, 36, 156 discursive construction, 33, 67, 215 environment, 46–9, 55, 65–6, 72–3, 215, 218 emotional connection, 153, 173 emplacement, 14–17, 41–3, 88, 110, 147, 152, 203–4, 213, 215, 218 ethnic history, 159–63 existential opportunity, 13, 16 experiential autochthony, 8, 11, 13–14, 33, 40, 75, 110, 112, 214, 215, 218 gender inequity, 92–5, 110, 122 guide/guest relationships, 83–7 home, sense of, 33, 58, 86, 184, 191, 217 hunting, 129, 198, 144–5 identity, 6, 75, 147, 152, 163, 174, 214 insecurity, 4–6, 8–9, 33, 36, 37, 73, 147, 154–6, 161, 164–5, 171, 174, 213 misanthropy (See under misanthropy) nationalism, 146–7, 157, 160–63, 172–3, 215 (see also identity) parochialism, 152, 174

race relations, 175–6, 184, 193, 197, 199, 203, 212, 216 (see also race) spiritual, 52, 55, 72 storytelling, 3, 33, 88–9 totemism (See under totemism) tourism, 110–11 tourist Other, 74–5, 81–3, 91 transparency, self-knowledge and acceptance, 211 widlife, 46, 52–3 See also emplacement; kgotla; political autochthony (politics of belonging) belonging through tourism. See under belonging Bhabha, H., 72 Biesele, M., 8, 27, 142 blackness. See under race Blixen, K., 93 Bloemfontein (South Africa), 195 Boer, 196. See also Afrikaner, Maburu boipelego (self-reliance), 205 boitekanelo (self-sufficiency / health), 64 Bolaane, M., 27, 61, 103, 113, 134, 142, 150, 163 boreholes (water access), 20, 25 Boro River, 2, 27, 30 Boteti River, 27, 30 Botswana, African miracle, 1, 19, 22 Botswana Defence Force, 22 Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), 22, 153, 167 Botswana Family Health Survey, 201 Botswana Movement for Democracy (BMD), 22 braai (barbeque), 2, 41 British Bechuanaland. See Bechuanaland protectorate. British influence. See Bechuanaland protectorate. British protectorate. See Bechuanaland protectorate. Bugakhwe (East / Northern Bushmen, Gudikwa and Khwai villages), 27, 34, 47, 61, 115

Index • 233

bush knowledge. See knowledge: bush Bushmen, 8, 20, 24–8, 41, 57, 60–62, 65, 68–72, 91, 102, 103, 135, 139–41, 149, 150, 153, 157–61, 179, 200, 208–10, 214. See also Basarwa (San); Bugakhwe; Gana; Gwi; Xanekwe (BaNoka) Campbell, A., 82, 162 Cape Town (South Africa), 185 Caprivi Strip (Namibia), 30 Carruthers, J., 67, 99, 132 cattle industry, 19–21, 55–6, 58, 75, 101–102, 106, 108, 136, 140, 149, 163, 165, 209 CBNRM. See Community Based Natural Resource Management programme Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR), 24, 25, 32, 58, 69, 103, 151, 209 Ceuppens, B., 11, 98, 148, 213 Chieftainship Act (1987), 23 Choy, T., 70 Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA) loans, 165–6 civic rather than ethnic citizenship. See race: subordination of race to citizenship, white Batswana civil society, 22–3, 190 civil war, 183 Angola, 30 Rwanda, 148 CKGR. See Central Kalahari Game Reserve class, anti-hunting, middle and upper class, 139 belonging, 16, 214 discrimination, 18 East African model, high-class safaris, 88, 137–8 guides, classless presentation, 90 hunters / trackers, 140

identity politics, 91 inequity, 75 interracial relationships, 181, 183, 189 nexus with race, power, 35, 37, 93, 95, 137, 176–7, 181, 184–9, 193, 210, 212 poverty, 57, 201 See also rights, denial; race; segregation Clifford, J., 13 climate, 153, 165, 178 Batswana knowledge, 15 change, 217 extreme, 18, 44, 45, 47–9 spiritual connection, 49 See also emplacement; ‘Mud Island’ Cohen, A., 67, 130 collective identity. See under belonging (white Batswana) colonial history, 5, 156, 174. See also postcolonialism Comaroff, Jean and John, 8, 41, 55, 169, 186, 214 communal land, 20. See under hunting and gathering: alienation; Wayeyi: environmental alienation community alienation. See under poverty Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) programme, 108–10, 142, 143 Community Based Organisations (CBOs), 109, 142 connections to place. See emplacement conservation, 20, 24–5, 31, 36, 46, 55–8, 75–6, 98–101, 102–10, 120, 132–6, 142, 144. See also emplacement; hunting; tourism industry Constitution, Botswana (1966), 24, 148, 150–51 Contagious Bovine Pleuro Pneumonia (CBPP), 21, 102

234 • Index

Controlled Hunting Areas (CHAs), 56, 142 cosmopolitanism. See under white Batswana crime, 29, 129–30, 169–71 Cronon, W., 49 Crowley, J., 17, 156, 171, 197, 216 Cubango River, 30 Cuito River, 30 cultural skills. See knowledge: cultural / linguistic Dalley, C., 10, 11 Davies, Caitlin, 169, 171 de la Cadena, M., 10, 11 death, 21, 50, 116, 117 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007), 157 Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP), 61, 103 Descola, P., 65 DeVore, I., 8 diamond wealth, 22, 75, 100, 132, 158, 201 mineral dependency causing welfare dependency, 19 dikgotla (wards), 28, 31, 150, 154. disease, 21, 55, 102, 106, 137 Dizard, J., 126 domestic staff, 177, 186–90. See also class; race Dominy, M., 14, 42, 49, 79, 93, 103, 202 Dorman, S., 10 Draper, M., 45, 54, 94, 120, 166, 173, 208 Du Preez, M., 197 Durban (South Africa), 34 Durham, D., 10, 147, 166, 185 Dyer, R., 184 Dxeriku (riverine ethnic group), 27 Dziewiecka, M., 155, 159, 163, 199 economy. See under cattle industry; diamond wealth; tourism industry

education, 95–6, 165, 185, 187 bush knowledge, 61, 67–8, 138, 140, 142 and employment, 57, 165, 208, 216–17 (see also employment) HIV/AIDS campaigns, 21 limited access, poor, 21, 57 localisation, 96–8 privilege, 166, 183, 210 public, 18–19 South African schooling, 188, 204 tourism-sponsored programs, 105–7, 142 See also employment; unemployment emplacement belonging, 14–17, 41–3, 88, 110, 147, 152, 203–4, 213, 215, 218 Maun, 164, 204 photographic tourism, 164, 215– 16 policy, 147–8, 165, 206 See also belonging: knowledge: environment: experiential autochthony; belonging: environment employer / employee relations, 78–9, 140, 188–90, 201–2. See also employment; tourism employment association with whites, 184 CEDA loans, 166–7 civil service elite, 23 community provision, 68, 107 diamond industry, 19 domestic staff, 186–90 hunting, 131, 139–40, 142–3 nannies, 93, 200 safari guides, 77–9, 145 South Africans, 165 South African mines, 1960s/70s, 76 tourism, 76, 105–8, 114 Tribal Grazing Land Policy, 19 white Batswana, opportunities, 68, 76–9, 208, 217

Index • 235

See also Community Based Natural Resource Management Programme; employer / employee relations Escobar, A., 89, 103 Etsha region, 27 exclusion absolutist indigenism, 13–14 Community Based Natural Resource Management Programme, 109 discourse to deny rights, 12 elite pastoralism, 20 hunting, community exclusion, 143, 145 land, 59 political autochthony, 12 politics of belonging, 16, 155–6, 211, 213 professional hunting, gender, 117 See also autochthony; xenophobia, rights, denial expatriates, 3, 28, 32, 47, 51, 65, 70, 88, 94, 95, 96, 96–8, 111, 120, 125, 129–32, 164, 169–71, 176, 180–81, 189, 194, 202, 207, 217 experiential autochthony, 6, 11–14, 17, 33, 40, 41, 52, 69, 72, 75, 83, 110, 112, 115, 144, 214, 215, 218. See also autochthony; belonging: experiential autochthony Fechter, A., 186, 197 Ferguson, J., 72 floodwaters, 1, 2, 30, 90 Francistown, 32, 53, 129 Franklin, A., 47, 135 Gaborone, 32, 35, 48, 49, 53, 54, 59, 78, 127, 167, 173, 181, 182, 189, 190, 191, 193 Gana (Bushman community), 24 gender identity belonging, individual, 16 hunting, 119–20, 122–3 race, 180–84, 187, 194

tourism industry, inequity, 75, 91–5, 110 See also under belonging; Maun; safari Geschiere, P., 11, 12, 83, 98, 148, 213 Ghanzi, 8, 35, 46, 59, 69, 78, 92, 93, 130, 133, 160, 178, 179, 193 Giddens, A., 60 globalisation 12, 32, 41, 89, 98–9, 103, 135, 142, 178, 185, 200 anti-hunting, 120–21, 143 tourism, 62, 80, 85, 132, 216 Good, K., 17– 21, 141, 149, 150, 158, 167, 209 Gordimer, N., 147, 153, 158, 163 Grant Thornton survey, 92 Gudikwa (village), 27, 140 Guided mobile safaris. See safari Gulbrandsen, Ø., 5, 19, 20, 24, 26, 28, 96, 132, 136, 151–3, 158, 162–3, 166–7, 172, 183, 184, 204–6, 208, 210, 216 Gwi (Bushman community), 24 HaMbukushu (riverine ethnic group), 27, 102, 103, 160, 200 Hammett, D., 10 Handler, R., 13 Harrison, S., 192, 193, 204 Head, B., 72, 163 headmen, 28, 56, 150, 154, 207–8 Hemingway, E., 137 Herero (ethnic group) 27, 101, 147, 150, 154, 166 Hilgers, M., 8, 58, 69, 71, 213 Hitchcock, R., 8, 27, 136, 137, 209 HIV/AIDS, 21, 106, 155–6, 189, 217 antiretroviral treatment, 21, 187 Hodgson, D., 157 Holland (Netherlands), 178 home (ideology, Maun), 32–3, 39. See also belonging: home homeland, 6, 9, 11, 16, 49, 121. See also belonging, sense of: home Huckleberry Finn, 90

236 • Index

Hughes, D., 44, 45, 54, 132, 152, 173 human genome, 177 hunting, 112–44, 209 advocates, 122 anti-hunting, 112, 120, 121, 145 Bacchanalian links, 127 elephants, 115–16, 119, 120 ideological objections, 118 subsistence, 121, 137, 138, 141 unethical practices, 121, 127, 143 See also ivory hunting and gathering, 27, 135 alienation, 20, 25, 61 See also hunting identity, construction against South African Other, 81, 96–7, 99, 120, 148, 158–9, 175, 192–9, 203, 211 identity politics, 6, 12, 13 nexus of race, ethnicity, class, citizenship, 91, 176, 212 recent increase, 23, 36, 91 See also autochthony; class; gender immigration, 5, 10, 23, 97, 113, 146, 149, 150, 184, 217 Independence (1966), 17–19, 22–4, 47, 52–3, 96, 113–14, 137, 148, 152, 158, 160, 162, 167, 173, 181, 202–4 indigeneity, anthropology, basis, 8 autochthony, 9–10, 157, 202 critique, 13 definition, 9 hierarchy of belonging, 69 fluid, 10–11 romanticised, Western, 72 See also autochthony: belonging: existential autochthony infrastructure colonial paradigm of transforming African landscape, 132 derived from tourism, 76, 114 fencing (cattle), 55

Moremi Game Reserve, relocation, 102–3 past lack, 109, 114, 162 transport, 18, 103, 109 state provision, 68, 157 water services, 24–5, 109 See also Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) programme insecurity belonging, relationship, 6, 8–9, 33, 147, 154–6, 161, 164–5, 174, 213 denial, 4 emplacement, 16 white minority in postcolonial southern Africa, 5, 8–9, 36, 37, 73, 147, 155, 173, 174, 213 See also under belonging, sense of; postcolonialism; white Batswana; whiteness: connectedness and insecurity, interethnic violence. See violence International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), 31 interracial connections, environment, 60–63. See also employment: hunting; employment: tourism interracial marriage, 37, 176, 177, 179, 180, 181, 182, 193, 194, 208, 212, 216. See also race ivory, 100, 113, 115, 133, 137. See also hunting Johan Calitz Hunting Safaris, 90 Johannesburg (South Africa), 3, 141, 190 joll (party), 94 jolling (partying), 43 Ju/hoansi (bushmen, XaiXai region), 27 kagisano (remaining in harmony), 5, 26, 194 kagiso (peace), 5, 132

Index • 237

Kalahari region, 1, 8, 24, 30, 32, 34, 46–7, 58, 64–5, 78, 118–19, 136, 153, 200, 201. See also Central Kalahari Game Reserve Kavango (Namibia), 31 Kenrick, J., 11, 73 Kenya, 53, 87, 93, 106, 118 Kgathi, D., 20, 81, 101, 103, 141, 143 kgotla, 28, 31, 91, 98, 103, 114, 134, 150, 152, 159–60, 168, 206–7 khaki, 87, 88, 129, 182 ‘khaki fever’, 87 (see also safari: performativity) Khama, Seretse (first President, Botswana), 22, 112, 153, 160, 168, 180, 181 Khwai community, 27, 103–4, 109, 140, 142 Kingsley-Heath, J., 114 knowledge, bureaucratic, 56–8, 167 bush, 41, 47, 60–66, 70, 71–3, 92, 123, 140, 178, 204, 215 cultural / linguistic, 60, 84, 110, 140, 188, 202–4, 208 environment, 12, 1–45, 40, 42, 65, 70, 134, 144, 214 hunting, 122, 133–4 place, 3, 15, 41, 48, 69, 77, 88, 115 tourism, 98, 110 Krech, S., 71 Kuke fence (Ngamiland), 102 Kuper, A., 13, 72 land rights, 40, 56–60. See also Tswana Land Boards Lanting, F., 49 lekgoa (pl. makgoa), 49, 83, 184, 196, 197 Letsholathebe I, Kgosi (1847–74) (Chief), 98, 113, 149 licence driver’s 169, 176 hunting, 75, 114–17, 123, 127, 135, 137, 141, 143

safari guide, 60–62, 93, 97, 164 vehicle, 75 Lobatse region, 59 local charities, 190. See also Maun: community development localisation policy. See under education Low, S., 15 Mababe (village), 27, 103, 109, 140 maboko (formal praise poetry), 205 Maburu (South African: Boer), 96, 196 MacKenzie, J., 44, 123, 126, 133 Magole, L., 20, 60, 61, 76, 102, 136, 140, 141 Mahalapye (town), 53 Makgadikgadi pans, 30, 34, 106, 108 makgoa (sing. lekgoa), 26, 196. See also lekgoa Malela, K., 200 Malpas, J., 41 Markham, B., 93 Marshall, L., 8, 157 Marvin, G., 134 Masarwa (Basarwa as previously known, pej. prefix Ma), 26. See also San materialism. See anti-materialism Matshwane (school), 39, 89 Maun, alcohol consumption, 2, 85, 127, 129, 163, 171–2, 194 anti-materialist, 130–312 bars, 35, 43, 47, 61, 67, 70, 78, 85, 86, 105, 126, 128, 129, 163, 171, 172, 183, 194, 202, 206 BaTawana dominance, 28, 103, 205, 206 bush knowledge, 62, 67, 70 climate, 48–9 community development, 190–93 crime, 169–71 emplacement, 164, 204

238 • Index

environment-focused, 52–3, 66, 99, 106–7, 125 floodwaters, 30 gender, 91–2, 94 history / geography, 31–3, 155, 159 hunting, 113–15, 117, 120–27, 135–6 insider / outsider perspective, 32, 35, 67, 216 interracial marriage, 180–82 Okavango region’s capital, 31, 32 racism, 183–5, 194–5 remote, 32 research base, 34 Thamalakane River, 30, 31, 104 tourism, 61, 76, 79–83, 85–6, 89, 105–6, 127–8, 209 township, 27, 83 village, 1, 82, 114 Wild West, 129 wildlife, 51 See also belonging; Okavango Maun Animal Welfare Society, 190 Maunachira River, 30 Mazonde, I., 8, 91, 166 Mbaiwa, J., 20, 21, 58, 75, 76, 80, 81, 91, 95, 96, 98, 100–104, 109, 113, 136, 141–3 McCall Smith, A. 18 media, 21, 22, 151 mekoro (canoes). See mokoro merafe (nations: Tswana groupings – sing. morafe), 23, 24, 56, 147, 149, 156, 174, 184. See also under specific merafe: BaNgwato, BaTawana, BaKgatla, BaKwena, BaNgwaketse, BaMalete, BaRolong and BaTlokwa. See also Tswana: eight Tswana merafe (subgroups) Merafhe, Mompati Sebogodi (Foreign Minister Lt. General), 209 Merlan, F., 71 Mies, M., 86 Miller, L., 13, 16, 36, 156, 160, 210

mining. See under diamond wealth misanthropy, 46–7, 203–4 belonging, 45–6 the West, 46 Mochaba (‘sycamore fig’: Ficus sycamorus), 60 modernity, 24, 61, 81, 174, 185, 207– 8, 210. See also the West Mogae, Festus (President), 158, 209 Mohembo (town), 30 mokoro (dugout canoe), 61, 76, 97, 105 MoNgwaketse, 2, 4, 35, 96, 127, 156, 181, 206 See also BaNgwaketse MoTawana. See BaTawana mophato (regiment), 152 Moremi Game Reserve, 32, 61, 66, 77, 102, 109, 134, 135 mosadi (woman), 187, 204 mosadi mogolo (older white woman), 204 ‘Mud Island’ (England), 45, 178. See also climate Mugabe, Robert, 59, 155 Mulcock, J., 52, 55 MuYeyi (plural Wayeyi, or BaYei, Bantu-speaking ethnic group) 2, 4 Namibia, 11, 28, 31, 54, 153 Naro (Bushmen), 65, 69, 153, 179 narrative. See storytelling nationalism, 33, 40, 52–5, 56, 147, 171–4, 192, 214–15. See also autochthony; belonging national parks, 32, 56, 58, 61, 76, 77, 80, 103, 104, 109, 119, 123, 135 nativeness. See under autochthony Ndozi, C., 102 neo-primitive. See under tourism industry New Zealand, 14, 49, 79, 93, 157, 160 Newfoundland, 89 Ngami Times, 1, 32, 170, 200

Index • 239

Ngamiland, 1, 21, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 56, 75, 100, 102, 113, 136, 149, 150, 153, 154, 159, 178, 212 Ngamiland district, 1, 31, 56, 150 Ngwenya, B., 20, 81, 101, 103, 141, 143 Nokaneng, 27 Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), 25 non-racialism. See racism non-violence (Botswana), 26, 52, 59, 113–14, 120, 153, 161–2, 169–70, 195 freedom from interethnic violence, 23 See also violence Northern Ireland, 11 Nthibe, H., 102 Ntlo ya Kgosi (‘House of Chiefs’) 151 Nugent, P., 10 Nxai Pan National Park, 32 Nyamnjoh, F., 12, 23, 83, 148, 164, 166, 184, 185, 189, 196, 200, 201, 217 Nyati-Ramahobo, L., 26. See also Saleshando omang (Botswana citizen identity cards), 173, 176, 214 Other. See autochthony; race: South African Other Pálsson, G., 65 Pandian, A., 50 panga (large knife), 117 paternalism, 21, 121, 140, 187 patriotism, 9, 18, 36, 54, 82, 146–7, 192–3, 214, 215. See also belonging; nationalism performativity. See under safari Permanent Okavango River Basin Water Commission (OKACOM), 31 pets, 40, 45 phaletshe (maize meal), 83 photographic tourism bush knowledge, 36, 133–4

emplacement, 164, 215–16 establishment / process, 76, 87, 109, 142–4 frontier persona, 87, 127–8, 133–4 majority employment, white Batswana, 77, 121, 145 trophy photography, 117 See also hunting; safari; tourism industry Pilossof, R., 14, 35, 44, 53, 54, 59, 100, 140, 159, 167, 186, 195, 216 Pocius, G., 89, 173, 191, 210 police public ambivalence, 168–9 under-resourced, 129, 170, 207 political autochthony, 11–13, 33, 36–7, 75, 145, 147, 157, 174, 214, 218. See also authochthony; belonging; experiential autochthony; politics of belonging politics of belonging, 11, 12, 15, 16, 148, 213. see also political autochthony postcolonialism, 126 Batswana, inclusive nomenclature, 6 identity construction, 41, 54 insecurity, white minority, 4, 36–7, 45, 73, 139, 147, 154–6 land rights equity, African exceptionalism, 58–9 landscape association as avoidance, 40, 53 racialisation of space, 154–5, 177 research into white populations, 8 state discourse (liberal individualism), 158, 174, 205 white Batswana, privilege, 166, 184 postcolonial nation, 59, 154 poverty, 18–21, 24, 31, 59, 76, 106, 131–2, 141, 164, 174, 187, 201, 209 community alienation, 102–5 See also unemployment

240 • Index

precarity, 174 private game ranches, 76, 112. See also hunting; safari protectorate. See Bechuanaland protectorate pula (national currency), 1, 105, 131, 135, 139, see also rain (pula) Quayle, M., 159, 195 race, 7 autochthonous status, 154–5 belonging, 81, 184, 211 blackness, 83 coloured, 53, 95, 158–9, 163, 180– 83 designations black and white, 7 ethnicity, 177–84, 186 inequity, 75, 111, 165, 194 interracial relations, 37, 176–7, 179–80, 182 nexus: class, power, 35, 75, 91, 93, 95, 176, 177, 181, 184–8, 212 privilege, colonialism, 73, 211 perception, worsening, 198–9 skin colour, 177, 186 socially constructed, 7, 177 South African Other, 192–9 subordination of race to citizenship, white Batswana, 7, 29, 81, 97, 177, 192–4, 200–202 tourism, 95, 97, 111 See also racism; whiteness race/class congruence. See race: nexus: class, power racialised thinking Afrikaners, 195 increasing, 199 persistence, 37, 179 unacknowledged, 4, 193, 212 See also race racism, Afrikaner, 179, 193, 195 research: apology/tirade spectrum, 35

belonging, challenged, 11, 176, 184, 199 black Batswana perception, 183 colonialism, 162, 198 economic, political, cultural underpinnings,178 increase, perception, 176, 182, 198, 212, 216 incident with the knife, 4–5 interracial relations, 177, 193–4 non-racialism, 148, 212 nonracist postcolonial state discourse, 158, 176, 182, 194–5, 212 tourism, 97, 105, 198–9 white citizens’ professed aversion, suppression, 5, 176, 178, 182, 184, 193, 197–8, 214–16 white expatriates, perception, 23, 96–7, 176, 182, 193–9 See also race; racialised thinking; whiteness rain (pula), 1, 42, 48, 49, 55, 87. See also pula Ramsar site, 31 Ranger, T., 44, 100 relationships between guides and guests. See under safari relationships with tourists. See under tourism religiosity, 50, 52 resource use, state control, 19–20, 36, 81, 101–2, 136, 139, 143–4, 157, 166, 177, 213. See also Community Based Natural Resource Management Programme; policy; Tawana: dominance; Tawana Land Board resourcefulness, valued trait, 63–4, 67, 90, 121, 125, 126, 129, 145, 178, 218 ‘making a plan’, 64, 132, 145, 205, 218 Reteng (‘we are here’), 150

Index • 241

retirement, lack of planning, 131–2. See also anti-materialism; poverty Rhodesia, 59, 100, 159, 211. See also Zimbabwe Ruark, R., 137 Russell M., 8, 93, 130, 178, 179, 180, 196, 197, 205 safari, 6, 32, 34–5, 47, 51, 60, 64, 74 emplacement, 84, 87 gender, 80, 93–4 guided, 55, 75–80, 84–90, 93, 94, 97, 99, 104, 108, 110, 130, 134–5, 164, 207 horseback, 66, 78 hunting, 35, 78, 90, 106, 109, 112– 21, 123, 135–42, 215–16 lodge-based, 74, 76, 77, 89 mobile, 34, 55, 76–7, 79, 97, 201 mokoro, 97 performativity, 87–91 relationships between guides and guests, 83–7 Safari Club International, 123 walking, 80, 90, 94 See also hunting; photographic safari; tourism industry Saleshando (Nyati-Ramahobo), L. (Deputy Vice Chancellor, University of Botswana), 26 San/Basarwa/Bushmen, 8, 26–7, 60, 140–41 Sankuyo (village), 27, 103, 109, 140, 143 Saugestad, S., 8, 9, 148, 158, 214 Schapera, I., 8, 28 segregation racial, 199 social separation of race, 37, 176, 194, 210, 215 See also race sense of belonging. See belonging Sepopa (village), 27 Seronga (village), 27 Serowe (town), 53, 153, 163

Setswana (national language), 4, 23, 26, 42, 151, 184, 195–6 acculturation, 202–11 citizenship, 164 constitution, 24 suppression of other languages, 149, 151–2 white Batswana, extensive vocabulary, 60, 61, 140, 146, 173, 176, 188, 202–11, 215 white Batswana, declining use, 199 settler-descendant Australians, 13, 55 skin colour. See race Slater, C., 135 sleeping sickness (trypanosomiasis), 163 Solway, J., 8, 13, 18, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 102, 150, 151, 209, 211 South Africa, 34, 54, 64, 67, 69, 76, 113, 146, 162, 175, 203 colonial domination, apartheid, 11, 148, 152, 155, 158–65, 187, 195 cultural displacement, 44 emplacement, landscape and nature, 44–5, 55, 70, 82, 147, 173, 180–81 expatriates, 2, 28, 47, 51, 70, 81, 130, 170, 181, 199 goods/services, reliance, 19, 129, 190 tourism, 77, 96–7, 99, 194 traits, parallels, 64, 67, 92 violent death rate, 170–71 white Batswana collective identity, 5, 81, 96–7, 99, 120, 192–9, 203, 211 Southern African Development Community (SADC), 31 Spierenburg, M., 45, 54, 166, 173 Starn, O., 10, 11 state building, 157–60. See also autochthony State of the Nation Address, 92, 143, 200 Steinhart, E., 93, 113, 118, 137

242 • Index

storytelling, 2, 3, 88, 205, 206. See also belonging: storytelling Stronza, A., 109 Subiyu (riverine ethnic group), 27 subsistence hunting. See under hunting Survival International (NGO), 25 Tati region, 59 Taussig, M., 72 Tawana, 31, 96 cultural subsumption, 28, 103, 147, 149–54, 172, 174 dominance, 28, 61–2, 81, 103, 163, 180–81, 208, 210 first centralised state in Ngamiland, 28 history, 28, 103, 113, 159 hunting, 113–15, 134, 138 morafe, 28, 31–2, 147, 149–54, 174 narrative culture, 206 racism, 194, 200, 203, 208–10 white Batswana, identity, 62–3, 91, 147, 153–4, 164, 174, 181, 183–4, 188, 189, 205, 206–8 See also catttle; kgotla; Maun; merafe; Tawana Land Board Tawana Land Board, 56, 161, 165. Tawana royals, 149 Taylor, I., 18, 20, 22 Thakadu, O., 109, 142, 143 Thamalakane River, 30, 31, 50 Thompson, G., 86, 90, 128 Tlou, T., 27, 28, 30, 81, 113, 114, 149, 150, 154, 159, 163, 180, 184, 189, 196, 205, 206, 208 totemism, 44, 46 tourism industry, belonging, 110–11 belonging, tourist Other, 74–5, 81–3, 91 employment, 76, 105–8, 114 (see also employment: safari guides) infrastructure, 76, 114 performing neo-primitive, 89–91

policy, high-cost, low-impact, 76, 82, 97 race, 95, 97, 111 racism, 97, 105, 198–9 relationships with tourists, 82–7 South Africa, 77, 96–7, 99, 194 sponsored education programs, 105–7, 142 See also hunting; photographic tourism; safari tourist Other, 36, 75, 82, 216. See also tourism industry transglobal capitalism. See globalisation Transparency International, 17 Tribal Grazing Land Policy (TGLP), 19, 20, 22 Tribal Land Amendment Act (1993), 56 Trigger, D., 10, 11 trophy fees, 75, 115. See also trophy hunting trophy hunting, 85, 112, 113, 115, 121–4, 138, 141, 144–5. considered unethical, 121 See also hunting Tsau (township), 27, 159 tsetse fly, 163 Tsimako, Thebayame (Deputy Commissioner of Police), 170 Tswana, 35, 42, 178, 200, 211 acculturation, 202–11 cattle, significance, 55, 109 collective land rights, 56 cosmology, 5 culture, 23, 24, 148, 202–8 dominance, public / political, 23–6, 36, 148, 174, 214 eight Tswana merafe (subgroups), 24, 28, 56, 146, 149–151, 156, 174 enabling white Batswana belonging, 36, 154, 165–6, 185 ethnicity, 6, 23, 36 hierarchical culture, 23, 153

Index • 243

hunting trade, control, 136–7, 209 minority incorporation into Tswana merafe, 24, 147, 149–54 past research, 8 ‘place of the Tswana’ (Botswana), 23 race, 178, 184–5, 192, 196–7 San exploitation, 140, 149 settlement history, 157–60, 184 suppression of minorities, 149, 151 three-tiered land use system, 56, 165 Tswana-centric governance, 25–6, 36, 153–4, 162, 167, 205 See also BaKgatla; BaKwena; Balopi Commission; BaMalete; BaNgwaketse; BaNgwato; BaRolong; BaTawana; BaTlokwa; boipelego; kgotla; race Tuli region, 8, 59 UN. See United Nations unemployment, 19–21, 57, 76, 78, 102, 106–7, 131, 142–3, 145, 187 destitute allowance, 20 See also employment; poverty United Nations, 19, 20, 21, 157, 158, 201 Van Onselen, C., 187 Verwey, C., 159, 195 Village Development Committee, 107 violence, 171 colonial settlement, Africa 11 interethnic, freedom from, 23 See also non-violence (Botswana) Walsh, A., 85 Warne, K., 2, 48 Wayeyi (Okavango’s largest ethnic group), 164, 210 bush knowledge, 61–2 environmental alienation, 61, 102– 3 history, 27, 149–50, 159

interlocutors, 34 Kamanakao (‘remnants’) Association, 150 narrative culture, 206 relocation, Moremi Game Reserve, 102–3 rights and recognition, advocacy, 25–6, 150–51, 154, 172 subordinate status, 150, 152, 208, 209, 210 Tswana co-option, 102–3, 150, 152, 154 white Batswana belonging, role, 91 Weekend Australian, 87 Weil, S., 213 welfare dependency, 20. See also alienation from the commons; diamond wealth; poverty Wels, H., 45, 54, 173 Werbner, R., 18, 26, 56, 57, 167, 172, 185, 191, 192 West, the binary constructions of nature, 65, 99 business models, 166, 185 conservation, Western construction, 99 cult of youth, 204 indigeneity, Western construction, 72 misanthropy (See under misanthropy) missionary organisations, 52 paternalism, non-Western, 187–9 political structures, 166, 185 privilege, white citizens, 62 racism, 178 state, oriented towards Western modernity, 24, 185 white Batswana (white citizens of the Okavango) African identity, 7–9, 11, 12, 45, 54, 74–5, 83–4, 96, 131, 155–62, 173, 175–6, 179–81, 187 Batswana identity, majority, 3–9, 14

244 • Index

cosmopolitanism, 89, 148, 152, 209, 210 emplacement, 14–17, 41–3, 88, 110, 147, 152, 203–4, 213, 215, 218 experiential autochthony, 8, 11, 13–14, 33, 40, 75, 110, 112, 214, 215, 218 insecurity, 8–9, 33, 36, 37, 73, 147, 154–6, 161, 164–5, 171, 174, 213 misanthropy (See under misanthropy) narrative, significance, 2, 3 racism, suppression and critique, 5 self-perception, 7 See also belonging (white Batswana); hunting white people, 4, 6, 7, 26, 46, 49, 95–6, 111, 127, 146, 152, 155–6, 160–61, 171, 176–85, 196–9, 208, 216. See also belonging; white Batswana white minority, 4, 34, 37, 40, 139, 152, 154, 166, 192. See also belonging; white Batswana white Motswana (individual white Batswana). See white Batswana; white people; white minority whiteness as empty cultural space 178 cf. citizenship, 98, 178, 185 cf. collective identity, 178 connectedness and insecurity, 156, 165, 211 cultural specificity, 6, 178



postcolonial critique, Zimbabwe, 45 privilege, 165–6, 177, 185–6, 211 wealth 177, 184–6 See also belonging: insecurity; race; white minority Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs), 56, 76 Williams, Ruth (wife of Seretse Khama), 180 Wilmsen, E., 8 Women Against Rape, 190 World Health Organization, 170 World Heritage Site, 31 XaiXai. See Ju/hoansi Xanekwe (BaNoka or River Bushmen), 27 xenophobia, 23, 164, 165, 184, 217 Year of Indigenous Peoples (1993), 158 Yuval-Davis, N., 12, 17, 54, 154, 173, 203 Zambia, 11, 153 Zenker, O., 9, 11, 13, 158, 202 Zimbabwe, 5, 11, 14, 23, 44–5, 54–5, 58, 97, 100, 105, 119, 153, 158, 164, 167, 172, 186, 195, 216, 217 Zanu-PF, 158 immigrants, 4 Land Acquisition Act, 59 Third Chimurenga of the Liberation War, 59