Land use and interethnic relationships between the !Xun and the Ovawambo in post-independence north-central Namibia

Bibliographic Data

ID2951367
AuthorsErika Miyake (Erika Miyake, Infrastructure & Healthcare Division, Sojitz Corporation, 2-1-1 Uchisaiwai-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-8691, Japan), Akira Takada (0000-0002-0895-7224, Kyoto University)
Year2021
Volume7
Issue1-2
Pages33-54
Publication date2021-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHunter Gatherer Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1476-4253 • E-ISSN: 2056-3264
PublisherLiverpool University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.3828/hgr.2023.9
OpenAlexW4390103064
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited11

The San consist of various groups distinguished by language, locale and cultural practices. Focusing on the !Xun San living in Ekoka, a village originally established by a missionary organisation in the heartland of the Ovawambo agro-pastoral people, this paper aims to clarify how the !Xun, the extreme minority in the region, have been reorganising their relationships with various actors including the Ovawambo after Namibia gained independence. The results show that the Ovawambo play an important role in providing the !Xun with opportunities to engage in wage labour, which is the main source of their income, and various food materials. In addition, the land shortage problem that the Ovawambo experience has become increasingly serious after independence. Against the backdrop of these circumstances, the Ovawambo have overused the cooperative farm which was initially created for the San, and thus damages to the San's crops have frequently occurred, largely caused by the Oshiwanbo livestock. Nonetheless, the !Xun have not shown consistent opposition to the Ovawambo's use of their land. Ironically, the cooperative farm, which was established and run by the missionary organisations about half a century ago for the purpose of promoting food self-sufficiency among the San, is facilitating the !Xun's engagement in labour for the Ovawambo. While advocating poverty reduction for the San and their integration into the nation-state, the government is actually strengthening the policy of assimilating the San into the Ovawambo. In such a situation, the !Xun seek a better lifestyle by reorganising the reciprocal relationship with the Ovawambo through using the cooperative farm and food materials provided by the Namibian government. This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0

Damages · Development economics · Economic growth · Economics · Government (linguistics) · Independence (probability theory) · Opposition (politics) · Political economy · Political science · Poverty · Sociology · State (computer science) · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies · Law · Multilingual Education and Policy · Rangeland Management and Livestock Ecology

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