Faculty of Social Sciences University of Helsinki SURVIVING ‘DEVELOPMENT’ RURAL DEVELOPMENT INTERVENTIONS, PROTECTED AREA MANAGEMENT AND FORMAL EDUCATION WITH THE KHWE SAN IN BWABWATA NATIONAL PARK, NAMIBIA Attila Paksi University of Helsinki Doctoral Programme in Political, Societal and Regional Change
[email protected] DOCTORAL DISSERTATION To be presented for public discussion with the permission of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki, on Friday 18 September 2020, at 16 o’clock. The public discussion can be followed remotely online. Helsinki 2020 Reviewed by Professor Lisa Cliggett, University of Kentucky, USA; Professor Sian Sullivan, Bath Spa University, UK. Custos Professor Anja Kaarina Nygren, University of Helsinki, Finland. Supervised by Adjunct Professor Aili Pyhälä, University of Helsinki, Finland; Assistant Professor Pirjo Kristiina Virtanen, University of Helsinki, Finland; Professor Barry Gills, University of Helsinki, Finland. Opponent Adjunct Professor Robert K. Hitchcock, University of New Mexico, USA ISBN 978-951-51-6347-9 (paperback) ISBN 978-951-51-6348-6 (PDF) Unigrafia Helsinki 2020 ABSTRACT In the last three decades, southern African governments and non-profit organizations, following the narrative of poverty alleviation and integrated rural development, have initiated a variety of development interventions targeting the hunter-gatherer San people. Despite these interventions, the southern African San groups, like many other Indigenous Peoples, remained economically, politically, and socially marginalized. In this doctoral dissertation, I have examined how such interventions have impacted on the contemporary livelihoods of a Namibian San group, the Khwe San. Based on a 15-month-long ethnographic field study with the Khwe community living in the eastern part of Bwabwata National Park (BNP), this thesis is compiled of four peer-reviewed articles and a summarizing report.