The State and the Social. Ørnulf Gulbrandsen
constituted a pool of cheap labour for the South African mines and the system of labour migration that developed itself was a structure of imperial control that even as it made exploitative use of Tswana political orders gave a degree of autonomy to the Tswana that was a crucial factor in the formation of independent Botswana. The force of Tswana cultural and social values not only persisted through changing circumstances but were vital agencies in social transformation.
In the later circumstances of the development of the independent nation-state Gulbrandsen indicates that the continuing incorporative dynamic of Tswana practice is a factor (regardless of its hierarchializing and inegalitarian dimensions) suppressing the more extreme potentials of inter-ethnic conflict. Agents of the Botswana state were concerned that tribalism (a curse in much of Africa and, as the Manchester anthropologists of Gluckman's central and southern African school insisted, more a force of modernity than of tradition) should not be encouraged. Regardless of government policy to such effect there is strong evidence that Tswana's incorporative dynamics harnessed to the interests of state formation is a major factor ameliorating ethnic tension.
Gulbrandsen's direction to overcome various dualisms that have afflicted anthropological thinking (as well as that in other disciplines) is important. For example, he records very interestingly how the centrifugal social and political effects of cattle-herding societies are not a necessary outcome of such economies as some anthropologists have asserted. On the contrary, among the Tswana concentrated, relatively permanent and dense population settlements were formed that became the core of centralized hierarchical political orders. In the terms of Deleuze and Guattari, rhizomic de-territorializing forces were bound with tree-like hierarchical centering and territorializing processes that imparted to the Tswana their particular expansive and incorporative dynamic. Here I must hasten to add that Gulbrandsen does not reduce his understanding of the Tswana to ecological or economic forces, instead demonstrating how these are not to be separated from other cultural and social institutional processes which are as constitutive of the economy, for instance, as vice versa. This is especially so in the period prior to colonialism and the forging of the in-dependent nation-state when it could be said that strictly speaking there was no such thing as an economy in the modern capitalist sense (see Sahlins 1978, Clastres 1987, Dumont 1986). What Gulbrandsen demonstrates is how cultural forces that bear the traces of the past continue to have an influence on the political economy of the contemporary nationstate within globalizing realities. Beef exports are vital in the state economy and much of the success of the Botswana cattle industry is built on the fact of the centrality of cattle in practices of the creation and formation of social and political relations quite independently of any capital interest. In other words, the cultural importance of cattle in Tswana social life advantageously positioned Botswana in the processes of global capital.
I find fascinating Gulbrandsen's historical discussion of the relation of the various lineage-based Tswana kingdoms/nations or merafe and their rulers (kgosi) to the emerging Botswana nation-state. While they are drawn into the state order and to a large extent marginalized (and more recently losing influence as a consequence of the growth of new urban centres), Gulbrandsen suggests that the kgosi operate as a check on state practices. In the early period of Independence it seems that they functioned as an alternative state within the state, perhaps to play on Pierre Clastres' thesis in Society Against the State (1987), as a society of the state against the nation-state and its bureaucracy that in Gulbrandsen's argument is relatively exterior to society.
Overall Gulbrandsen addresses major sociological and political arguments that have developed recently with regard to Africa. I refer to the tendency to treat contemporary African states as more or less basket cases, which if so are views, in many instances, exacerbated in what would seem to be highly Eurocentric opinion: for example, arguments that discuss Africa in terms of concepts of the failed state, the politics of the belly and elite greed, radical ethnic conflict and war, intense dynamics of impoverishment and much else. The negative forces of so-called traditionalism and historically formed cultural orientations constituted outside European history, the maladaptation of African political cultural realities to rational bureaucratic orders are among some of the factors that have been stressed as well as the destructive forces of global capital in the circumstances of contemporary globalization. Gulbrandsen's work suggests that explanations of the plight of many state situations in Africa with reference to the above factors may be too easy. Traditionalism or cultural orientations refashioned within the context of modernity do not necessarily lead to negative consequences. The evidence from Botswana – and Gulbrandsen is relatively positive in his assessment – indicates that fast conventionalizing opinion and theory demands some more careful reconsideration.
This is a wonderful book rich in ethnography and every bit as rich in careful and considered thought. The book is exemplary in its anthropology and demonstrates the continuing value of an anthropological perspective across the disciplines.
Bruce Kapferer
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This volume is an outcome of my long-term anthropological research in Botswana, based on a number of extended periods of field work since 1976. It relies on many conversations and observations in widespread parts of this country; from the ultra-centre of the modern state ministerial quarters to small, scattered hamlets hundreds of kilometres from the capital. Most of the time I spent in South-Eastern Botswana, in particular within the domain of one of the larger Tswana kingdoms (merafe) – the Bangwaketse – where I initially lived for a year and a half in a large, provincial village, composed of a majority of Tswana as well as ‘minorities’ of different origins. During that time I also worked closely with people living in the royal centre and with governmental employees at different levels. After numerous return trips to these and other locations in Botswana, I think back upon the years that have passed with tremendous gratitude to all the people who have engaged with me, for long hours, in conversations on all kinds of topics. Their generosity and hospitality have been important indeed for whatever merits this study might have. Beyond that, the extensive involvement with people in their everyday life – often giving rise to lifelong friendships – has, more than I can say, enriched my life. Many thanks to all of you.
There are some people in Botswana I want to mention in particular. At an early stage, the late Bathoen II Gaseitsiwe – the kgosi (king) of the Bangwaketse since 1928 until he abdicated and became leader of the opposition and Member of Parliament in 1969 – generously received me for a number of enlightening conversations. I also returned many times to his son and heir, Kgosi Seepapitso IV, until his death in 2010 and benefited always from his sharp scrutiny of my arguments and his outspokenness. Deputy Kgosi Gaboletswe Ketsitlile has been a close friend and a highly knowledgeable and informative conversation partner ever since I first came to the country. He has taught me much of what I know about ‘how our people live and think,’ as he used to say. Amongst the large number of other people in Botswana who helped me to comprehend what was going on in various quarters, I especially want to mention Edward Gabotloeloe, Gobuamang Gobuamang, Sandy Grant, Ruud Jansen, M. L. A. Kgasa, the late Kgosi Linchwe, Remolefe Matiba, Otukile Masolotate, the late Tselayakgosi Motlogelwa, Kaboyamodimo Modise, the late Vance Mogotsi, MmaTebogo Mogotsi, Alice Mogwe, Macholm and Marcia Odell, Bonnie Sebonego, and Pulahela Sebotho. Let me extend particular gratitude to the former state president Festus Mogae who invited me for a long evening's conversation, complementing indeed the diversity of perspectives from which I have attempted to comprehend Botswana.
During all the years of research in which the present study is grounded, many colleagues have, at different stages, helped me to analyze and theorize my ethnographic materials through conversations as well as comments and criticisms of seminar presentations and written drafts. The present study depends, particularly, on the inspiring intellectual exchanges I have enjoyed with Bruce Kapferer for many years; I want especially to express my gratitude for his extremely helpful critique and comments on drafts of the present text. I thank him as well for writing the foreword of this book. I have, moreover, had a long-standing stimulating relationship with John Comaroff since we first met in Botswana in 1975. He has always responded generously to all the drafts I have sent him, with constructive, extensive and encouraging critique. His and Jean Comaroff's works have always provided a great source of inspiration which I hope the present volume