A Kalahari Family (2002)
"A Kalahari Family is a five-part, six-hour series documenting 50 years in the lives of the Ju/'hoansi of southern Africa, from 1951 to 2000. These once independent hunter-gatherers experience dispossession, confinement to a homeland, and the chaos of war. Then as hope for Namibian independence and the end of apartheid grows, Ju/'hoansi fight to establish farming communities and reclaim their traditional lands. The series challenges stereotypes of "Primitive Bushmen" with images of the development projects Ju/'hoansi are carrying out themselves" (description from
the DER website.
The class has been able to view some parts of this series, but no part was more controversial and more relevant to the study of foraging groups today than the last of the five, "Death By Myth." It depicts the degradation of the Foundation originally started by John Marshal, into nothing more than a development group, who has interests that lay outside those of the Ju/'Hoansi around Nyae Nyae. The farmer's cooperative would not be listened to for concerns, goals, or advice. The major flaw in the plans of the developers was that the Ju/'hoansi have always been and still are hunter-gatherers. In fact, the Ju'hoansi have had land taken away and farming labor imposed upon them on settlers' compounds. The plans for Ju/'hoansi to survive within an animal refuge by hunting with bows and arrows was very far off from where they now stood. The once hunting people were now stationary, and in denser populated areas, with little opportunities to be found other than inadequate government handouts.
View the trailer for A Kalahari Family.
