Thinking with relations in nature conservation? A case study of the Etosha National Park and Haiǁom

Dieckmann, Ute

doi:10.1111/1467-9655.14008

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 63 publications

(103 reference statements)

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“…Effective management of national parks often involves consultation with local communities, leading to community empowerment and decision-making involvement. In Namibia, conservancies adjacent to Etosha National Park have allowed local communities to manage wildlife and tourism, leading to income generation and improved living standards(Dieckmann, 2023; Tortuguero National Park, 2023). With approximately 15.7 million recreational visits in 2022, the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina and Virginia was the most visited National Park Service park in the United States (Figure2).…”

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15. ‘Walking through places'

Dieckmann

2024

Etosha Pan to the Skeleton Coast

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This chapter engages with differing conceptions of the land that has become Namibia’s ‘flagship park’ and premier tourist attraction. By tourists, Etosha might be perceived either as an untamed wilderness or a large zoo; for scientists, it might represent an excellent research opportunity to test zoological hypotheses; and for farmers on the border farms, it might be a source of nuisance, its wildlife causing trouble and––at times––economic loss. For Haiǁom, Etosha represents part of their former lifeworld; an ecology of which they were an integral part. Their ancestors lived across the region alongside other Khoekhoegowab- and San-speaking peoples before the major immigrations of Bantu speakers during the last 500 years of the second millennium. In the first half of the 20th century, they were mainly living from hunting and gathering, with some families keeping a few goats or cattle, combined with occasional seasonal work and temporary employment. Drawing on a cultural mapping project, combined with oral history and archival research, this chapter explores the lifeworld of Haiǁom in Etosha and their relations to the land, to other humans and to beyond-human inhabitants, prior to their eviction in the 1950s. Anthropologist Tim Ingold’s concept of “meshwork” is drawn on as a suitable concept for capturing Haiǁom’s being-in-Etosha as being-in-relations. The picture emerging from the research is that of a dense relational web of land, kinship, humans, animals, plants and spirit beings, an integrated ecology and an almost forgotten past which should, in line with this publication’s aim, be acknowledged by and integrated into future nature conservation policies and practices.

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16. History and social complexities for San at Tsintsabis resettlement farm, Namibia

Koot,

ǁKhumûb

2024

Etosha Pan to the Skeleton Coast

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The theme of the 1950s eviction of Haiǁom Indigenous people from the protected area that became Etosha National Park is continued in this chapter. After this event, many Haiǁom San became farm workers. Having lost their lands under colonialism and apartheid to nature conservation and large-scale livestock ranching, most remained living in the margins of society at the service of white farmers, conservationists or the South African Defence Force (SADF). After Independence in 1990, group resettlement farms became crucial to address historically built-up inequalities by providing marginalised groups with opportunities to start self-sufficient small-scale agriculture. This chapter critically addresses the history of the Tsintsabis resettlement farm, just over a 100 kms east of ENP, where at first predominantly Haiǁom (and to a lesser degree !Xun) were “resettled” on their own ancestral land, some as former evictees from ENP. The history of Tsintsabis is analysed in relation to two pressing, and related, social complexities at this resettlement farm, namely: 1) ethnic tension and in-migration; and 2) leadership. The chapter argues that the case of Tsintsabis shows the importance of acknowledging historically built-up injustices when addressing current social complexities. The importance of doing long-term ethno-historical research about resettlement is thereby emphasised in order to be able to better understand the contextual processes within which resettlement is embedded.

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Thinking with relations in nature conservation? A case study of the Etosha National Park and Haiǁom

Cited by 3 publications

References 63 publications

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15. ‘Walking through places'

16. History and social complexities for San at Tsintsabis resettlement farm, Namibia

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