UC Santa Cruz UC Santa Cruz Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Gathering the Kalahari: Tracking Landscapes in Motion Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7b98v9k6 Author du Plessis, Pierre Louis Publication Date 2018 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ GATHERING THE KALAHARI: TRACKING LANDSCAPES IN MOTION A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in ANTHROPOLOGY by Pierre L. du Plessis June 2018 The Dissertation of Pierre du Plessis is approved: _____________________________________ Professor Anna Tsing, chair ____________________________________ Professor Andrew Mathews _____________________________________ Professor Mayanthi Fernando ____________________________ Tyrus Miller Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Copyright © by Pierre L. du Plessis 2018 Table of Contents Table of Figures ............................................................................................................................ v Abstract ........................................................................................................................................ vi Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................... ix Introduction. “Keep on Tracking:” Finding Openings in the Kalahari Desert ............ 1 Part One. Opening: An introduction in four parts .................................................................................. 1 Part Two. Endings as Beginnings .................................................................................................................... 6 Dissertation Framing ................................................................................................................... 22 Part Three. Situating the Kalahari: Kalahari Anthropology in the Politics of the Landscape .................................................................................................................................................................................... 24 Central Kalahari: Two Different approaches to Ecological Anthropology ................. 30 Kalahari Debates and Land Rights ........................................................................................... 41 Infrastructures of “Self-Devouring Growth”: Cattle, Fences, Highways and Water 50 Landscapes in Motion: Movement against Growth ............................................................ 60 Part Four. The Trackers ..................................................................................................................................... 63 The Trackers ................................................................................................................................... 68 Chapter 1. Tracking After Hunting: Landscapes in Motion ........................................... 79 A Day of Tracking .................................................................................................................................................. 82 Tracking After Hunting ...................................................................................................................................... 89 Tracking: From Hunting to Science ............................................................................................................. 95 What Is Tracking? ................................................................................................................................................. 99 Tracking Skill........................................................................................................................................................ 101 The Political Situatedness of Tracking .................................................................................................... 111 Detecting the Unseen ........................................................................................................................................ 122 Tracking Landscapes ........................................................................................................................................ 130 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................................. 140 Chapter 2. Staying with the Truffle: From Spoor to Spore.......................................... 143 Tracking Meat of the Sand ............................................................................................................................ 150 Truffle Places ........................................................................................................................................................ 158 Truffle Mobilities ................................................................................................................................................ 168 iii Truffled Landscapes: How Truffles Gather ............................................................................................ 172 Truffle Mycology ................................................................................................................................................. 177 To Gather and to be Gathered: Towards a Carrier Bag Theory of Landscape .................... 183 Interlude: When the Truffle Left Us .................................................................................. 189 Chapter 3. Between the Tracks: Following Grass.......................................................... 193 Truffle Paths to Grass ....................................................................................................................................... 197 Bere, GH11, and Gustel Heinz’s Farm ....................................................................................................... 203 Walking with Grass ........................................................................................................................................... 212 The Mistake of Holding Things Still .......................................................................................................... 229 Gaps between Tracks ........................................................................................................................................ 231 Chapter 4. Finding Haly: Towards Pan-Gatherings and their Storied Geologies . 239 Stories of a Pan Called Haly .......................................................................................................................... 243 Pan Geologies: What are Pans? ................................................................................................................... 249 Finding Haly .......................................................................................................................................................... 255 On Wayfinding and Mapping ....................................................................................................................... 263 Pan Gatherings .................................................................................................................................................... 266 Debating Haly ...................................................................................................................................................... 272 Navigating with Pans ....................................................................................................................................... 277 Haly Found ............................................................................................................................................................. 280 Towards Conclusions ........................................................................................................................................ 285 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 289 Bibliography............................................................................................................................ 303 iv Table of Figures Figure 1 Wildlife dispersal areas (Albertson 2017). ............................................................. 10 Figure 2 The proposed expansion of fencing and livestock ranching. (Albertson 2017). ....... 11 Figure 3 Google Earth image of the settlement Bere, Ghanzi ............................................. 116 Figure 4 Truffle track ........................................................................................................ 152 Figure 5 Truffles with navel nubs visible ........................................................................... 153 Figure 6 A truffle with its umbilical cord ........................................................................... 154 Figure 7. A truffle with its umbilical cord.. ........................................................................ 157 Figure 8 Purple witchweed emerging ................................................................................ 164 Figure 9 A truffle landscape (Njoxlau and Karoha) ............................................................ 172 Figure 10 Gustel’s drawing of how truffles live. ................................................................ 176 Figure 11 Open expanse of grass on the edge of a grassy pan in KD2.. .............................