“Return us where we can hunt and gather”: hierarchies and social structures that sustain exclusion of San minority in Zimbabwe

• Date: 28 May 2024
• Pages: 895-909
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-04-2023-0119
• Published date: 28 May 2024
• Author: Kudakwashe Chirambwi

“Return us where we can hunt

and gather”: hierarchies and social

structures that sustain exclusion

of San minority in Zimbabwe

Kudakwashe Chirambwi

Department of Peace, Leadership and Conflict Transformation,

National University of Science and Technology, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

Abstract

Purpose –The paper seeks to analyse the constellation of social structures, administrative institutions and

hierarchies that sustain the exclusion of the San minority group in Zimbabwe, with a particular focus on how

the European expansionin the eighteenth century, the modern state and private property owners have colluded

to perpetuate exclusion from accessing forest as their natural habitat. The purpose of this paper is to therefore

highlight the various abuses, including those social, administrative legislative frameworks that discriminate

against the San minority and it advocates for actions the right to consultation and the right to free, prior and

informed consent to proposed developments.

Design/methodology/approach –Through the modern ethnographic approach, data generation was

guided by the principles of indigenous and decolonising research methodologies, which place emphasis on the

importance of San people telling their own stories thereby shifting the power of a researcher to the indigenous

participants. This is a qualitative study that gives pro minence to the descriptions of experiences

(phenomenology) and interpretations (hermeneutic) of their survival. The paper employed cultural ecology

theoretical frameworkas a lens through which to see the San’s exclusion from forest resources and how this has

tragically shifted their egalitarian lifestyle characterised by reciprocity,sharing and levelling to adaptation to

the unfamiliar sedentary farming practices.

Findings –The technical implementation of forest boundary demarcation and forcing the San to join

sedentary farming form part of the state’s territorialisation that excludes, restricts and disrupts the San

minority from accessing forest products. The treatment of the minority group reveals not only the enormous

authority of the state to transfer alienation to individuals and companies but also to legitimise the exclusion by

establishing laws and policies that safeguard the interests of those favoured by the state. The San, who are

already overly dominated by the social administrative structures of the Ndebele and Kalanga tribes, lack

systematic and organised responses to their marginalisation.

Originality/value –The San community in Zimbabwe is under-researched and under-theorised particularly

in relation to how historically formed postcolonial hierarchies of exclusion and marginalisation manifest

themselves in contemporary resource governance. Less is known about how those that are powerful –

government officia ls, private property o wners and Kalanga/Nd ebele tribes benefit m ore from the

environmental resources than the powerless minority San, whose livelihoods depend on the primary natural

resources. The unequal power relations have been demonstrated by the evictions of the minority from wildlife

areas that were converted into game parks. The study reveals how indigenous San not only resist exclusion but

also develop adaptable strategies thr ough negotiations to improve their si tuation with social and

administrative institutions.

Keywords San, Zimbabwe, Territoriality, Forests, Adaptation, Resistance

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

The paper explores the under-researched minority San community in Zimbabwe, with the

aim to accent their position in inclusion and diversity as well as develop locally relevant,

culture-sensitive theoretical frameworks. The indigenous San in Zimbabwe have been

exclusively studied from historiography (Lee, 1979;Ranger, 1999), egalitarianism and

linguistics (Traill and Vossen, 1997;Ndlovu, 2013;Vossen, 2013) overlooking issues of

inclusion and equality. This is understandably so because, all too often, inclusion and

Equality,

Diversity and

Inclusion: An

International

Journal

895

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/2040-7149.htm

Received 14 April 2023

Revised 10 December 2023

Accepted 23 April 2024

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 43 No. 6, 2024

pp. 895-909

© Emerald Publishing Limited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-04-2023-0119