Including the Khoisan for a more inclusive Blue Economy in South Africa

ABSTRACT

This article proposes that including the Khoisan will produce a more inclusive Blue Economy in South Africa. Presently, economistic perspectives of the ocean, low regard for knowledge pluralism and historical stereotyping of Khoisan peoples, risk their further exclusion from ocean management in South Africa. Drawing on secondary data on Khoisan history and ethnography in South Africa, the article indicates the potential contribution of the Khoisan to South Africa’s Blue Economy, specifically, their contribution to a holistic and integrated environmental ethos. The authors also argue that South Africa is headed in the right direction by being a signatory to key UN conventions on heritage and the rights of indigenous peoples. However, government has yet to realize its commitments to the inclusion of the Khoisan in its ocean management efforts. The discussion has implications beyond South Africa, as it seeks to interrogate the place of First Peoples in global ocean management regimes.

KEYWORDS:

• Khoisan
• South Africa
• Blue Economy
• inclusion and identity in Africa

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Reflecting on indigenous peoples’ conceptions of nature and universe in the Amazon, Arias (2019) argues that the features of this universe are, ‘parity, complementarity, cosmological, community life, respect and ritualism.’ Arias further argues that ‘parity is not duality’ and that all matter and life is fundamentally connected and mutually influencing. In this, Arias challenges Agrawal’s comment that one not seek to identify the distinguishing features of indigenous knowledge, for, according to Agrawal, such knowledge is not comparable.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rosabelle Boswell

Rosabelle (Rose) Boswell is an anthropologist and a DSI-NRF South African Research Chair in Ocean Cultures and Heritage. She is author of three monographs, one co-edited book, two poetry books and more than 30 peer reviewed articles and book chapters. Her research papers have focused on the politics of intangible cultural heritage, restorative justice, diversity management and sensory ethnography. She has completed anthropological fieldwork in Mauritius, Madagascar, Zanzibar, Seychelles and South Africa. The Research Chair position facilitates research on coastal heritage in a further five African countries, including South Africa. The research presented in this article is funded by the UKRI, One Ocean Hub and a South African NRF Grant UID 129962.

Jessica Leigh Thornton

Jessica Leigh Thornton is an anthropologist and postdoctoral grantee of the National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Pretoria, South Africa. She is also a part-time researcher for the One Ocean Hub and the NRF Oceans’ Account Framework project led by Patrick Vrancken at Nelson Mandela University. In 2017, she served as project manager for an NMU led South African LOTTO funded project entitled ‘Moments in Time: Field Guides to Heritage in the Eastern Cape Province’.