The University of Tromsø and the University of Botswana Collaborative Program for San (Basarwa) Research and Capacity Building (UT-UB) combines ongoing research (on the cultural, historical, linguistic, economic and legal situation of the San) with San capacity-building. The project encourages a comparative perspective on indigenous peoples, drawing on the experience of the University of Tromsø and its Centre for Saami Studies, as well as South-South links with the University of Namibia (UNAM) and the University of Western Cape (UWC).
The program’s specific objectives are:
1. To pursue innovative strategies for promoting San access to higher education and capacity building.
2. To identify ways in which research can make a positive contribution to San development.
3. To promote and further develop research capacity and competence among university staff and students.
4. To ensure that capacity is reflected in appropriate teaching and studies within and outside of the University.
5. To establish a network for San research in the region.
The multi-disciplinary program, involving a wide range of activities, networks to involve staff and students with the international research community. Activities include Masters and Ph.D. scholarship support, research on Khoesan languages, and projects addressing issues of gender, ethnicity, and social change, as well as workshops and conferences.
All available written documents on the San are being assembled, abstracted, and entered into a database at the University of Botswana’s library. Material from this ongoing activity is available to students and researchers there. An initial volume, The Khoe and San: An Annotated Bibliography, will appear in 2002. In the project’s second phase, the focus is expanding to include a stronger emphasis on affirmative action to recruit San students, with a focus on job training and capacity-building in addition to academic research.
Political Challenges
As a pioneer program in its field, the Collaborative Program for San/Basarwa Research has been considered controversial for its role in addressing severe ethnic-based disparities in a society that prides itself on its non-racialism; it has had to overcome more than an average share of political resistance in Botswana. Given this background, continued support from University of Botswana leadership is itself a significant achievement. But since the program’s primary goal was to enhance the status of people of Khoesan background, its real achievement will be measured in terms of its impact on wider social issues through the production and dissemination of knowledge and information.
Capacity-building has exposed the need for flexibility when dealing with marginalized groups. Because of the current structure of school curricula, few San children finish secondary school. The program must therefore aim to more effectively help San youth achieve university entrance requirements. Since its start, recruitment of non-San students interested in San-related issues has been combined with affirmative action to recruit San students themselves so that they may become leaders in their communities.
Plans are now being worked out for a San/Basarwa youth capacity-building component, also called "Actions for a New Deal." Based in the department of sociology, this component will include outreach activities and recruit promising candidates for degree and diploma programs. We are linking programs intended to mobilize Basarwa youth and train them in advocacy skills with UNESCO youth empowerment programs. A bridging program will focus on skills-building, the construction of a resource network, and opportunities to audit courses at the University of Botswana.
Point of Departure
The program’s founders believe that universities can play an important role in shaping the relationship between indigenous peoples and the nation-states under whose political structures they live. New and challenging questions are being asked about the role of academics, the need for advocacy, and, most importantly, how to involve indigenous peoples themselves in the development of knowledge. As universities committed to equal opportunity, the Universities of Botswana and Tromsø are part of this process. Their objective is to move from a situation of research on, to research with--and increasingly, also, research by--indigenous or ethnic minority groups.
The program is strengthened by a link to WIMSA, the San-based Working Group of Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa, through an oral testimony project that combines academics (cultural documentation) with training and community empowerment. Self-imposed guidelines--less comprehensive than WIMSA’s, but in the same spirit--have been set out for those funded by the program in an attempt to formalize researchers’ responsibility and accountability, and to ensure decent, respectful, and constructive behavior as regards communities in which research is conducted. Needless to say, UT-UB has no authority to control others doing research on the Basarwa, and has little influence on the rather restrictive research policies of the Office of the President, but we may gain greater influence in the future.
UT-UB’s joint coordinators are Dean of Humanities Dr. Joseph Tsonope on the Botswana side for the first period, to be succeeded by Dr. Onalenna Selolwane, sociology department head, in the second period, and Professor Sidsel Saugestad, department of anthropology, on the University of Tromsø side. Further information may be obtained from the program’s administrator, Ms. Hazel Hudson, phone/fax 267 355 5034, UBTromso@mopipi.ub.bw.
