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Guests in their Homeland The situation of the Topnaar community, the traditional but not legal residents in the Namib Naukluft Park Katrín Magnúsdóttir Lokaverkefni til MA–gráðu í mannfræði Félagsvísindasvið Guests in their Homeland The situation of the Topnaar community, the traditional but not legal residents in the Namib Naukluft Park Katrín Magnúsdóttir Lokaverkefni til MA–gráðu í mannfræði Leiðbeinandi: Kristín Loftsdóttir Félags- og mannvísindadeild Félagsvísindasvið Háskóla Íslands Maí 2013 Ritgerð þessi er lokaverkefni til MA–gráðu í mannfræði og er óheimilt að afrita ritgerðina á nokkurn hátt nema með leyfi rétthafa. © Katrín Magnúsdóttir 2013 Reykjavík, Ísland 2013 Abstract National parks have been established in the Third World throughout the last century without consulting local people. Usually management plans of these areas fail to include the local residents. International agreements have been made in the past decades to make local people gain rights in these areas. The parks make a clear separation between human beings and non- human nature. To explain this, the nature vs. culture dichotomy will be used. The focus in the project is on the Topnaar people, the local residents of theh Namib Naukluft Park in the Central Namib Desert. The aim is to answer whether, and how, they feel affected by the fact that they live within a proclaimed national. Since the proclamation of the park in 1907 their presence has been ignored in all park law. The fieldwork was carried out in Namibia in the spring 2009. Qualitative ethnographic research methods were used for data gathering. People within the Topnaar community were interviewed as well as ministry officials, NGO employees and consultants. The research showed that the existence of the community is generally acknowledged and the government has been trying to facilitate their livelihoods within the park since the independence of Namibia in 1990. Factors that could be linked to the park did not seem to affect their livelihoods. Factors of a more general nature seemed to affect them more, such as lack of water and leadership problems. 3 Útdráttur Sögu þjóðgarða má rekja til loka nítjándu aldar. Síðan þá hafa þjóðgarðar verið stofnaðir víða um heim, ekki síst í þriðja heiminum oft án samráðs við fólk sem býr á svæðinu. Undanfarna áratugi hafa alþjóðlegar samþykktir verið gerðar sem auka rétt íbúa á þessum svæðum. Tvíhyggjan menning – umhverfi verður notuð til að útskýra þjóðgarðshugtakið þar sem gerður er skýr greinarmunur á mannlegu samfélagi og umhverfinu. Þjóðgarðar verða skoðaðir með tilliti til Topnaarsamfélagsins, íbúa Namib Naukluft þjóðgarðsins í Namibíueyðimörkinni. Frá stofnun hans, árið 1907, hafa lög ekki gert ráð fyrir íbúum þar og þeir því strangt til tekið ólöglegir innan garðsins. Skoðað verður hvort það að búa innan þjóðgarðsins hafi áhrif á daglegt líf Topnaarfólksins. Rannsóknin var gerð í Namibíu vorið 2009. Eigindlegar vettvangsaðferðir voru notaðar við gagnaöflun. Talað var við fólk í Topnaarsamfélaginu sem og ráðuneytisstarfsmenn, starfsmenn félagasamtaka og ráðgjafa í Namibíu. Niðurstöður rannsóknarinnar voru þær að vera fólksins í þjóðgarðinum er almennt viðurkennd og hafa stjórnvöld reynt að auðvelda þeim lífið innan garðsins frá sjálfstæði Namibíu árið 1990. Þættir sem tengjast þjóðgarðinum beint virðast almennt hafa lítil áhrif á samfélagið. Þættir almenns eðlis virtust hafa meiri áhrif, svo sem vatnsskortur og vandamál varðandi stjórn innan samfélagsins sjálfs. 4 Acknowledgements I would like to use this opportunity to thank the many people that helped me during the writing of this thesis. First of all I would like to give my special thanks to my family, who was extremely helpful during the writing process. Especially I would like to thank my boyfriend, Árni Sverrir Bjarnason, for his patience and support on the later stages of the writing. My mother, Margrét Ófeigsdóttir, also gets special thanks and appreciation for her support. Without their support and effort the completion of the project would not have been possible. The Topnaar people themselves deserve a special mention at the beginning. They were very helpful during my time in the community and always willing to assist. In this regard I owe my special thanks to Sebedeus Swartbooi who was exceptionally helpful during my fieldwork. The employees at Gobabeb Research and Training Centre (GRTC) were very helpful and provided me with information and material that was very important to my project. The same applies to the employees at the Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MET) in Windhoek that provided me with documents and literature of great importance. I owe my special thanks to the Icelandic International Development Agency (ICEIDA) in Windhoek, first of all for the experience I gained during my internship and for introducing me to the Topnaar community. Davíð Bjarnason, gets special mention in this regard for guidance on the early stages of the field work. Jenny van Bosch, Maria Witbooi and Hlín Rafnsdóttir get special thanks for moral support during the fieldwork. I would also like thank the Nordic Africa Institute for their financial support without which this project would have been impossible. Karin Wittman gets her special thanks for supportive comments at the last stages of the writing. I also want to thank Elín María Halldórsdóttir and Sigurmundur Páll Jónsson for graphic design and technical assistance. Last but not least, my supervisor during the later stages of the research, Kristín Loftsdóttir, deserves a special mention for her guidance and support during the phase of writing my theses. I also owe my gratitude to my supervisors during the early stages of my research, Gísli Pálsson and Karl Benediktsson. 5 Preface In this thesis the results of a MA project in anthropology, with emphasis on environmental and developmental anthropology, are outlined. The project was supervised by Dr. Kristín Loftsdóttir, professor at the Department of Anthropology at the University of Iceland. The thesis accounts for 60 ECTS out of 120 ECTS required to attain a MA degree in anthropology at the University of Iceland. 6 Table of contents Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... 3 Útdráttur ..................................................................................................................................... 4 Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... 5 Preface ........................................................................................................................................ 6 Abbreviations ............................................................................................................................. 9 Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 10 1. Theoretical framework ......................................................................................................... 16 The nature vs. culture dichotomy ........................................................................................ 18 Protected areas – Neo-colonialism? ................................................................................... 21 Nature vs. culture and people in protected areas ................................................................ 23 Park residents and international rights ............................................................................... 25 International agreements and implementation of rights ..................................................... 28 2. Methodology ........................................................................................................................ 31 The white, Western anthropologist ...................................................................................... 31 The fieldwork ....................................................................................................................... 33 Limitations of the research and other considerations ......................................................... 35 The analysis of the data ....................................................................................................... 38 3. Settings ................................................................................................................................. 40 The natural environment of the Kuiseb Valley in the Central Namib Desert ..................... 40 Geological features ......................................................................................................... 40 Flora and fauna .............................................................................................................. 42 History and infrastructure in the Namib Naukluft Park ...................................................... 43 A brief history of the park, law and regulations ............................................................. 43 Tourism ........................................................................................................................... 44 Mining ............................................................................................................................. 45 Gobabeb Research and Training Centre ........................................................................ 45 The Topnaar community .....................................................................................................

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