The Abuse of ‘Development’ and its Consequences for Indigenous People: A case study of Botswana's Bushman community

Abstract

Noam Schimmel analyzes the way in which the rhetoric of development has been co-opted by some governments, in particular in this case study, the government of Botswana, to violate the human rights of an indigenous people, the Bushmen. He shows how using the discourse of development the government has justified the forced evictions of the Bushmen from their native lands, and resettled them in development towns that do not provide their material, spiritual, and cultural needs. Poverty, alcoholism, depression, suicide, AIDS transmission, and cultural assimilation promoted by monolingual schools have plagued the Bushman community as a result of these evictions. Forcibly settling a nomadic people and preventing them from hunting and gathering on their lands and from living on the land of their ancestors has profoundly damaged Bushman culture, and devastated the Bushman community.