Hunter-Gatherer Children at School: A View From the Global South

Universal formal education is a major global development goal. Yet hunter-gatherer communities have extremely low participation rates in formal schooling, even in comparison with other marginalized groups. Here, we review the existing literature to identify common challenges faced by hunter-gatherer children in formal education systems in the Global South. We find that hunter-gatherer children are often granted extensive personal autonomy, which is at odds with the hierarchical culture of school. Hunter-gatherer children face economic, infrastructural, social, cultural, and structural barriers that negatively affect their school participation. While schools have been identified as a risk to the transmission of hunter-gatherer values, languages, and traditional knowledge, they are also viewed by hunter-gatherer communities as a source of economic and cultural empowerment. These observations highlight the need for hunter-gatherer communities to decide for themselves the purpose school serves, and whether children should be compelled to attend

Conducting Fieldwork with San and Hadza (Post-)Hunter-Gatherer Communities in Africa: Regulatory and Ethical Issues

In this paper, we address some of the challenges and opportunities of conducting international research in psychology. We examine issues that arise from working in contexts that differ substantially from those in which most psychological research is still conducted. We take our experiences with Tanzanian and Namibian (post-)hunter-gatherers as a starting point for discussing regulatory and ethical issues. We have experienced a highly structured and regulated approach to research in Tanzania and a much less regulated situation in Namibia. We compare both and discuss conflicts that arise from differing demands of national regulations (or lack thereof) and funders or home institutions in the Global North. We focus on the special point of establishing informed consent. While the people we have worked with are not only often illiterate, they also have a very different background of experiences, which means that the translation of consent procedures is not sufficient, and other considerations need to come into play. We discuss cultural characteristics of hunter-gatherer groups, particularly norms related to individual autonomy, that convince us that our participants have the ability to consent nevertheless and compare this with the situation in other groups that we have worked with (for example, Indian farmers). However, we also reflect on ethical choices that become relevant in a digitalized world, particularly when working with children. We argue that an understanding of cultural models and norms is necessary to design and conduct meaningful psychological research and enable us to interpret findings correctly. We suggest to include communities that researchers work with into the research process wherever possible, to aim for long-term commitment and to cultivate an ethical stance regarding research, already in students that become involved in research projects

Towards decentralized anthropological scholarship: Some ethical considerations

This article outlines the future of decentralized blockchain scholarship and some ethical questions we must consider in its wake. What is the role of research participants in a decentralized publishing ecosystem? And how do we move towards more just values and practices in intellectual creation and dissemination

The state as a whiteman, the whiteman as a |'hun: Personhood, recognition, and the politics of knowability in the Kalahari

The Ju|’hoansi of east central Namibia sometimes refer to the state as a whiteman and to the whiteman as a /’hun (steenbok). In this article, I contextualize these naming practices by tracing the history of colonial encounters on the fringes of the Western Kalahari through a small-scale animist perspective. I then discuss what this means for the concept of ‘recognition’, which I treat as a two-way intersubjective process of making oneself un/knowable to others. I argue that the Ju|’hoansi have engaged in parallel processes of mis/recognition vis-à-vis their colonial Others. By failing to enter into reciprocal relations with the Ju|’hoansi, the whiteman and the state have remained outside of the Ju|’hoansi's social universe and have thus compromised their own personhood

Perpetuating the myth of the "wild Bushman": Inclusive multicultural education for the Omaheke Ju|'hoansi in Namibia

Namibia has adopted an inclusive education policy with emphasis on cultural and linguistic diversity. The policy encourages educators to adapt the curriculum and include content that reflects the cultural background of their learners. Despite these positive provisions, severely marginalized groups, such as the Omaheke Ju|’hoansi, continue to underperform and drop out of school at greater rates than learners from other groups. This article is based on ethnographic work in eight primary schools in east central Namibia and explores how educators understand and treat Ju|’hoan culture in schools. Analysis of the data points to preoccupation with superficial cultural differences that further marginalize Ju|’hoan learners. The study discusses the challenges of multicultural education for severely marginalized groups and questions its applicability in a highly segregated society

Under the big tree : challenges and accomplishments of Gqaina, a primary school for Ju/'hoan children in Omaheke, Namibia

The thesis makes an overview of a 'good' school for Ju/'hoan children in the Omaheke, Namibia. San children in the southern African region face many difficulties in formal education and there are very few schools in the region built to specifically meet the needs of the San. Gqaina Primary School has overcome many problems which San children face in education by creating a safe environment for them and promoting mother-tongue education in Ju/'hoansi. I have also looked into the discrepancy between the good school profile and the low parental participation and have argued that cultural differences are at the bottom of the problem. After graduation from Gqaina, many San children enroll in high schools. Yet, most of them drop out in the first two years. The reasons for that have also been questioned here

Learning to aspire, aspiring to subvert: Namibian San youths' narratives about the future as mimetic work of resistance

This article examines Namibian San youths’ aspirations about the future. Based on 170 essays, the analysis shows that disadvantaged San students aspire for future lives radically different from the lives of their families. We argue that San students have acquired the repertoire of “the good Namibian citizen” as a form of resistance through mimesis. These assertions create an opening for the projection of a positive and “proud” San identity

Hunter-gatherer children at school: A view from the Global South

Universal formal education is a major global development goal. Yet, hunter-gatherer communities have extremely low participation rates in formal schooling, even in comparison with other marginalized groups. Here, we review the existing literature to identify common challenges faced by hunter-gatherer children in formal education systems in the Global South. We find that hunter-gatherer children are often granted extensive personal autonomy, which is at odds with the authoritarian culture of school. Hunter-gatherer children face economic, infrastructural, social, cultural, and structural barriers which negatively affect their school participation. While schools are a risk to the transmission of hunter-gatherer values, languages, and traditional knowledge, they are also viewed by hunter-gatherer communities as a source of economic and cultural empowerment. These findings highlight the need for hunter-gatherer communities to decide for themselves the purpose school serves, and whether children should be compelled to attend