Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how state laws and policies are applied, contested, transformed and adapted in the everyday practices of bureaucracies in Botswana. It will examine the contradictions, continuities, and exceptions between practices, norms and juridical decisions in the Central Kalahari.

Paper long abstract:

The Republic of Botswana is often presented as a social and economic "miracle," a country that is an exception to generalizations about African countries. Held up as a model of democratic governance, excellent management, and sound financial planning, Botswana has had one of the highest economic growth rates in Africa. In the last twenty years, however, questions were raised nationally and internationally about the treatment of San and Bakgalagadi minorities in the Central Kalahari. There has been enormous publicity revolving around issues raised in two legal cases regarding access to land, water, resources and hunting rights of people in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve which saw High Court and Appeals Court decisions against the government.

In some ways, the Botswana courts have been a testing ground for policies involving recognition of rights for indigenous peoples and minorities and the ways in which they are dealt with legally and bureaucratically. This paper will look at the High Court verdicts, official rules and state ideas promising law implementation, progress, justice and equality and how these have played out on the ground. I examine the bureaucratic apparatus and government practices and how these are in dialectics with state law, government policies, local people and the international community in the case of the Central Kalahari. It will consider the substantial differences between laws on the books and their applications through the lives of the people who are the subject of rights and by those that either accept or deny such rights.