ABSTRACT

The San community in Zimbabwe is one of the indigenous tribes that have had a rather belated encounter with modernisation and globalisation. Their transition from a hunting and gathering economy to an agro-capitalist economy is widely considered as failed. Using the sustainable rural livelihoods framework, the study ethnographically investigates the performance of San livelihood portfolios. The main objective of the study was to interrogate the factors that prevent San communities from climbing up the social ladder to gain equal access to resources when compared with their Bantu neighbours. The study found out that some of the key drivers of the failed San communities’ transition include their location close to wild animals, systematic structural oppression by the Ndebele and Kalanga ethnic groups, and the natural environmental challenges such as climate change. We recommend that programming for San communities should take into cognisance these structural and contextual issues.

摘要

津巴布韦的桑族社区是与现代化和全球化相较迟的土著部落之一。他们从狩猎和采集经济向农业资本主义经济的转变被广泛认为是失败的。使用可持续的农村生计框架，该研究从人种学角度调查了 San 生计组合的表现。该研究的主要目的是询问与班图邻居相比，阻止桑族社区攀登社会阶梯以获取平等资源的因素。研究发现，桑族社区转型失败的一些关键驱动因素包括它们靠近野生动物的位置、恩德贝勒和卡兰加族群的系统结构压迫、以及气候变化等自然环境挑战。我们建议桑族社区的编程应考虑到这些结构和上下文问题。