Seminar: Kalahari Capers: Researching the Bushmen

The Rethinking Indigeneity Project, led by Keyan Tomaselli of the University of Kwazulu-Natal, has conducted research amongst indigenous populations in Southern Africa for twenty years now. At this seminar, Tomaselli will focus on the Bushmen (San): what has been the position of the Bushmen in Southern Africa through the years, and through several political processes? What has been the perception of the Bushmen by Westerners, notably tourists? And what about the perception the other way round? The project will be discussed in terms of research phases, researcher obligations, logistical challenges, subject/host and reviewer expectations, and Same-Other relations. How might researchers in (or coming to) the South conduct their work? Amongst the methods to be discussed will be auto-ethnography, participatory research, action research, and the ethnography of just plain ‘hanging about’.

The presentation will draw on Chapters 3 and 4 of Tomaselli’s most recent book 'Cultural Tourism and Identity' (Brill, 2012)