Product Description
by Megan Biesele (Author), Robert K. Hitchcock (Author)
The Ju/'hoan San, or Ju/'hoansi, of Namibia and Botswana are perhaps the most fully described indigenous people in all of anthropology. This is the story of how this group of former hunter-gatherers, speaking an exotic click language, formed a grassroots movement that led them to become a dynamic part of the new nation that grew from the ashes of apartheid South West Africa. While coverage of this group in the writings of Richard Lee, Lorna Marshall, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, and films by John Marshall includes extensive information on their traditional ways of life, this book continues the story as it has unfolded since 1990. Peopled with accounts of and from contemporary Ju>/'hoan people, the book gives newly-literate Ju/'hoansi the chance to address the world with their own voices. In doing so, the images and myths of the Ju/'hoan and other San (previously called "Bushmen") as either noble savages or helpless victims are discredited. This important book demonstrates the responsiveness of current anthropological advocacy to the aspirations of one of the best-known indigenous societies.
Author Biography
Robert K. Hitchcock is an Adjunct Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Previously he was Professor of Anthropology and Geography and Coordinator of African Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (1983-2006). He has worked with San communities in Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Zambia since 1975, and he serves on the board of the Kalahari Peoples Fund. He worked for the government of Botswana in the Ministry of Local Government and Lands (1977-79) and Ministry of Agriculture (1980-1982) and has served as a consultant to the Department of Wildlife and National Parks in Botswana. He has also worked for the governments of Somalia, Swaziland, and Lesotho, as well as for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Bank. His publications include Kalahari Cattle Posts (Government of Botswana, 1978); Endangered Peoples of Africa and the Middle East: Struggles to Survive and Thrive (co-editor, Greenwood, 2002); Indigenous Peoples' Rights in Southern Africa (co-editor, International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, 2004).
