RE: Knock, knock - Can I come in? San People of South Africa Issue Code of Ethics for Researchers
Hi Kate-m, I'm not a researcher or have a PHD, but I have spent time with both the SAN people and with Australian aboriginals (varied tribes - most of which, don't get along or agree on much). I have seen first hand some of the difficulties and social issues brought on by western societies and modern, external changes etc.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but If I recall correctly the SAN people seem to have issues at the moment with break away groups (often the younger generation), whom actually have a differing of opinion to the older leaders.
Do you know if the views of these newer generation were reflected in the code of ethics? and often the ancient tribes have very different views - was this paper put together by some form of modern consortium of tribal leaders? or just leaders from a subset representative.
I always feel bad for these groups as often they are forced to face modern problems and lack the support (or more commonly are used up, by the modern Governments that rule over the place). Lacking the modern education, having to rely on the same Governments exploiting them to help write ethical papers to protect them. I'm hoping this is not the case here?
Hi Lord Nigel, Thanks for your comment - no need to have letters after your name to chime in!
I have no direct experience with the San myself, although I do have immediate family members who have collaborated with San in Namibia. From what I can gather the code was put together by the leaders of three different San groups within South Africa, the !Xun, Khwe and !Khomani, with support from an organisation called Trust, who are an international NGO who specialise in empowering indigenous groups towards establishing more equitable relations with research (so no, it doesn't seem that this was the result of government machinations). It is not clear whether the process incorporated participatory techniques that would have captured voices from all sectors of society or if it would simply have been limited to the old men of the council. It would be really interesting to know! I certainly would not just take for granted that methods were sufficiently participatory as that is very hard to achieve. There is a great book called "Participation: The New Tyranny?" by Cook and Kothari (2001), perhaps a bit old now, but I think still very relevant and gives great examples of how "participatory" processes often end up further silencing or bullying people.
It should be noted that the majority of San live in Namibia and Botswana with smaller populations in Angola and Zimbabwe, but these ethics are only adopted by the three groups who put it forward. I imagine it may be the beginning of more groups either formulating their own ethics codes or adopting pre-prepared ones used by other groups such as this one from South Africa.
Yes, jeez Louise, your heart just has to go out to groups like the San. They really do get trapped between worlds. I certainly know that in Namibia they've had many problems, including prohibition of hunting and therefore their traditional nomadic style of life, and issues with dis-appropriation of land. In one instance the watering hole of one group was fenced off for the cattle of a private land-owner and the tribe were left with no access. In this particular case they actually set up a living history museum, so they built a model village were everything was completely traditional and they would invite groups of tourists who would pay an entry fee and also buy traditional items and jewelry. This sort of cultural tourism is plagued with problems and I would be the first to jump to critically analyse that, however they have managed to get out of a really bad situation on their terms and whilst maintaining a pride in their culture and heritage, so it's great to see a successful example. I believe they managed to buy back access to the watering hole and a certain percentage of all income from tourism goes towards a shared community pot that is spent on buying in food and other essentials for the entire community.
That book:
Cook, B. and Kothari, U. eds. (2001). Participation: The New Tyranny? London: Zed Books.
Interesting stuff, thanks for the great post! we seem to have some similar views about both the positive/negative effects of tourism.
The San I visited were in Botswana. They were younger, not very large people, lean and built to live off the land. It's fascinating to see how they see and use the environment (taking only what is needed to survive) - Where I saw dirt and bushes, these guys saw a supermarket of a variety of foods, medicines, shelters (not that they could speak English to tell me this, I just learned by being shown).
I believe the group I visited in Namibia were the Himba people (there are San there as well) & I have spent time with many of these different ancient race/traditional tribal groups all over the planet.
Practically (just an observers view without a science degree - I have minimal formal education coming from a relatively poor background myself) they all have different views of the world which is great, but struggle with similar issues brought on by the concept of cash$/ownership. Basically they are exploited, I mean how can you buy back a water hole that for 1000's of years was everyone's to use? just having to deal with the concept of your not allowed to go there anymore, must be so difficult for them.
The problem I saw is they use the money to do things like buy large bags of rice. On the surface this seems great like..yeah they deserve to get something (western way or thinking is cash please :). Speaking with some of the elders/leaders/local conservationist this change in diet has brought on changes, they also use the money to go to doctors and things (which they would not have been able to do without cash$ - ironically in some cases wouldn't have had to do without the changes happening around them). Often these groups unsure how to behave in this unbalanced environment will over harvest their landscape for more cash (more rice), then thus worsening the issues.
I think a code of ethics is a good thing. I'm glad that it seems to be representative of those whom participated in creating it as they will all have different views. It would be fascinating if someone could read/collect a book of ethics from tribal/ancient groups all over the world to see if there are common areas/patterns that could led to some kind of book of minimal ethics to cover all on how to deal with ownership and cash concepts.
Cheers
Yes, the concept of ownership of land is not always congruous with various tribe’s ways of understanding the world, it may be seen as grossly immoral to many of them! Unfortunately, disappropriation of land is the global norm when it comes to indigenous people, it’s a real struggle. Many NGOs try to fill the gap of lobbying on behalf of indigenous peoples to influence government policy, which is often geared towards allocating concessions of land to industry/conservation.
Yes, cash is complicated. However if they have been forbidden to hunt and restricted in their traditional roaming lifestyle then the other alternative if cash is not to be involved is to farm (which they may not have the culture and skills to immediately assume) or to directly receive food without cash transaction, or I guess starving is also an option. In the living history museum project I mentioned it was really good that a percentage went to communal use whilst a percentage went to individual incomes. That the quality of food might not be the best is definitely an issue. Take for example the Guarani in Rio de Janeiro where I just spent a couple of years, they receive the “basic basket” from the government, and the quality of food is very poor! Cheap white flour, cheap white rice, cheap rape seed oil… basically loads of empty calories. I think the “nutrition transition” concept is quite an interesting one to think about this change in traditional diets. Having said all that I am actually rather fascinated about the complexities of how interacting with cash changes the dynamics within indigenous culture. For example, I’ve heard of several cases where projects were set up to try to help people make money from crafts (or pick x,y and z from possible NGO development activities). In the end the men coerce the women to work away at these crafts and then the men just spend the money on cigarettes and alcohol, and because the women have been working so hard on the crafts they are forced to neglect other homesteading activities that keep things ticking over for healthy well-fed families. So in the end they end up worse off. So power and gender considerations are really important to investigate.
I suspect with the code of ethics that many of them will be rather similar. At the end of the day most people just want to be treated with a bit of basic respect!
Hmm, I hope I covered all the points you raised! Thanks for the comment!