Verbal.

For my final MA project, I’ll be looking at the Khwe people who inhabit Southern Africa. The San, who are also called the Khwe (Khoe), Basarwa or Bushman, are nomadic hunter gatherers in Southern Africa. In the past hundred years, the San have experienced substantial changes to their nomadic lifestyles.

As Southern Africa resolves decades of oppression and white rule, the struggle by the San people for human rights in Southern Africa is starting to become known to the international community. Issues faced by the San people, such as alcoholism, malnutrition, loss of traditional hunting lands and economic dependency, have left them vulnerable. Basic human rights have been taken away from them. Their land, food and traditions all socially shunned by governments not allowing political participation.

Since the 1990s, the San have been able to make inroads with various governments to ensure political recognition and representation was forthcoming. However, the San people are currently facing other social issues that challenge their way of life and leave them with an uncertain future.

My Approach

My aim is to spend the next five months looking at how the San people of South Africa, Namibia and Botswana are currently living and adapting to the pressures of modern society and political change within Southern Africa.

The key areas I want to document are:

• Land
• Tradition
• EconomicDependency
• Health

In each of these areas, I want to document how the San people are adapting, or in some cases, not to the pressures placed on them by the various governments, who now control their traditional lands. It will include looking at how these governments, and various NGO groups, are ensuring they are treated as an indigenous people and allowed to practice cultural and traditional methods without feat of prosecution, such as hunting in state- owned game reserves.

On the economic dependency aspect, I want to understand how todays Bushman is providing a living for their family, as well as ensuring traditional ways are taught to the younger members of the family.

Lastly, I want to document the life of a young San. This approach will see me spending a large amount of time with the person whilst trying to get a better understanding of what life is life for a modern San today. What pressures they face, what challenges and what they feel is the future for the San people of Southern Africa

Timetable

Due to the geographic nature of this project, and the fact that the San people are nomadic and occupy three different countries at any given time, this will be broken down into a per- tribe basis.
I plan to spend a week with each tribe, as and when time permits. The San Organisation and the Working Group of Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa (WIMSA) will endeavor to help me as much as possible in spending time with the various groups for longer periods of time.

I will endeavor to visit major tribes in RSA, Botswana and Namibia. For the last part of the documentary, I will spend time with a young Bushman who lives in Kimberley and works in the mining industry. This will see me spend a week with the person initially to fully understand their daily way of life.
As the relationship builds, I envision spending further time in, and around, Kimberley.

The approach taken by me for this project will be similar to my Rethink project on The Afrikaners. It will be shot with medium format film and potentially 35mm film, when deemed necessary.

I want to move away from the posed african men in loin cloth shots so often used by my peers and want to portray the San as something other than an exotic sideshow for Europeans.

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