Experiential Autochthony in the Okavango Delta, Botswana

Abstract

The white Batswana of the Okavango identify as African, are strongly nationalistic and express deep senses of belonging to the social and physical environments of their birth and upbringing. Yet, claims to belonging by white people to extra-European territories are often perceived as inauthentic at best and neocolonial at worst. This raises the question of how the empirical realities of such connections can be analytically rendered without threatening or appropriating indigenous identities. Through making a case for the heuristic utility of the concept of experiential autochthony, I argue that emplacement and belonging can be fruitfully explored for migrant and settler groups.

Keywords:

• Autochthony
• Indigeneity
• Belonging
• Okavango Delta
• Botswana
• Anthropology

Notes

[1] Acknowledgements: the fieldwork was conducted as part of my doctoral research at the University of Western Australia. Thanks to the editors and anonymous reviewers for insightful comments on earlier drafts.

[2] These studies have been conducted by some of the discipline's most renowned scholars, ranging from the extensive works on the Tswana by Isaac Schapera (1970, 1947, 1938), to more recent work by John and Jean Comaroff on the Tswana in both South Africa and Botswana (e.g. 1985, 1991), Richard Werbner (e.g. 2004), Francis Nyamnjoh (2007, 2006), and Deborah Durham (2004) to name a few. The Kalahari has hosted an endless stream of anthropologists, including Richard Lee (1979; with Irven Devore 1968), Lorna Marshall (1976), Edwin Wilmsen (1989), Alan Barnard (2007), Jacqueline Solway (2006, 2003, 2002), Sidsel Saugestad (2001), Robert Hitchcock (1996), and many others. Solway (2006, 9), in fact, suggests that ‘the San are arguably the most thoroughly documented group in Africa.’

[3] That the Tswana even constitute a numerical majority is contested, with some academics suggesting that the combined minority communities may in fact constitute a higher percentage of the population (see Parsons 1985).

[4] From the projection of numbers for 2007 based on the Botswana Census (2001).

[5] 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 the physical meeting area of the council. It is a forum where all manner of grievances are aired, political issues debated, ceremonial activities conducted, laws promulgated, and judgments brought down by the Chief and tribal council. It is a relatively democratic forum where, along with the Chief exercising his authority, villagers are given the opportunity to express their concerns directly. See Peters (1994) and Schapera (1938) for detailed explications of Tswana customary laws and traditional social structures.

[6] Rutherford (2004, 545); see also Mamdani (2001, 657) for a full discussion of the term.

[7] For detailed accounts of Botswana's fascinating past, see Parsons (1997) Bennett (2002) and Hall (1973); on the Okavango area, see Tlou (1985) and Dziewiecka (1996).

[8] In Botswana and South Africa, the term coloured continues to be used to describe a person of inter-racial descent. While this term is seen as contentious in the West, it is used by people of mixed ancestry to self-identify in the Okavango and, like the terms black and white, is seen as a fairly unproblematic descriptor.

[9] See, for example, Escobar (2001); Dominy (2001); Altman and Low (1992); Low (2003).