Drought as a Revelatory Crisis: An Exploration of Shifting Entitlements and Hierarchies in the Kalahari, Botswana

Abstract

This article analyses drought in Botswana as a ‘revelatory crisis' in which structural contradictions as well as deteriorating socio‐economic conditions are exposed. Paradoxically, however, drought also enables such conditions to be concealed because they can be attributed to the ‘crisis' and not to deeper problems and trends. In addition, crises such as droughts disrupt conventional routine sufficiently to allow actors (including government policy‐makers as well as rural producers) to innovate with normative codes. This fact along with the opening up of structural fault lines often leads to accelerated rates of social change. Change is analysed here both in terms of the structural conditions in which it takes place (and alters) and with regard to the actions taken by individuals and institutions in order to reveal the links between structure and agency. The article draws upon an extended case study from Central Botswana and utilizes Sen's method of entitlement analysis to examine changing social processes.

Human perceptions of environmental degradation in a part of the Kalahari ecosystem

“…This finding is similar to conclusions reached by similar studies elsewhere in the country (DTRP 1987a, i987b;Solway 1994) and other parts of the world. For instance, Baumann and Simms (1974) reported that farmers in the southern United States "persuaded by the power of outside forces on their lives tended to adopt passive-fatalistic coping behaviours".…”

“…Drought was seen by the majority of the households interviewed as the primary cause of the problems affecting the principal resource use systems, a not too uncommon perception among rural people in Botswana andelsewhere (cf. DTRP 1987a, 1987b;Mpotokwane and Segodi 1989;Solway 1994;Lindskog and Tengberg 1994). However, as shown in Table 2, a rich diversity of secondary and minor factors were also cited during the interviews which, in many cases, were resource use specific.…”

Beyond Territory and Scarcity: Exploring Conflicts over Natural Resource Management

“…As has been stressed in a large number of articles on tenure issues in Africa (Berry, 1989Peters, 1992Peters, , 1994Solway, 1994), local concepts of property facilitate reciprocal use, since rights to property are simultaneously individuated and dispersed. While most items may be identified with an individual, a larger kin group will usually enjoy some sort of use rights.…”

An assessment of the potential of drylands in eight sub-Saharan African countries to produce bioenergy feedstocks

“…Such support involves access to loans, extension services and markets. Solway [49] describes how the introduction of loans left small-scale farmers in Botswana worse off than they were before. Together with cash derived from selling their oxen, they used their loans to purchase tractors.…”