The Khoisan in Botswana - Can multicultural discourses redeem them?

Abstract

The Khoisan people are one of the indigenous peoples of Southern Africa. Botswana has the greatest diversity of these autochthonous communities. As ethnic minorities, they are characterized in the main by small numbers, aboriginality, and necessitousness compared to other ethnic communities who readily engage modern socioeconomic dynamics of the country. They are generally marginalized and their ethnic and social identity is completely eclipsed because in Botswana they are lumped together in cultural and language development with the main society and this has only exacerbated their plight as they are reeling under assimilation and marginalization. This situation has the effect of ethno-linguistic endangerment as they lose their individual ethnic and linguistic identities. Their agitations for ethno-linguistic preservation rights have been put in the lime-light by Human Rights NGOs. This paper examines the condition of these people within the current monolithic cultural framework, which has the effect of annihilating the Khoisan. It argues that handling the Khoisan issues within a multicultural discourse framework would be the most palpable way to cater for their continued existence as indigenous communities. It is through their languages, their preserved ethnicity, and within a framework of multicultural discourses that they can best communicate their identity through their culture.