Paper short abstract:

The paper takes account of the highly personal engagement of John Marshall with a small group of people in the Kalahari. The focus is on discussing the development, grass roots organization, and advocacy (including land claims) initiatives that he pursued on behalf of the Ju/wasi over the course of his life, more intensely after his 1978 return to SWA/Namibia.

Paper long abstract:

Laurence Marshall took his 17 years old son John to Africa in 1950, as part of an exploratory expedition in search of the Lost City of the Kalahari. Following this trip, and with the academic backing and formal sponsorship of the Peabody Museum at Harvard University, Mr. Marshall organized and funded a series of seven additional expeditions into the Kalahari during the 1950s, aiming to study and document the way of life of hunter gatherers in the area. In this atypical set of expeditions he would take along members of his family and parties of up to twenty people (academics from Harvard and elsewhere, colonial administrators, interpreters, driver-mechanics and cooks). An endeavor that radically changed the lives of this unconventional American family, as well as contributing to change the lives of the families and people they encountered in the remote Kalahari, in unintended yet dramatic ways. For John it was the beginning of a lifelong engagement with the peoples of the Kalahari, both as a documentary filmmaker and devoted friend and advocate of the Ju/wa people.

This paper aims to take account of the highly personal and professional engagement of John Marshall with a small group of people whom he considered his friends, and whose plight he felt deeply concerned about. The paper will focus on the development, grass roots organization, and advocacy (including land claims) initiatives that he pursued over the course of his life, more intensely after his 1978 return to South West Africa/Namibia.