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Rural class formation and ecological collapse in Botswana
Abstract
After some early colonial impetus towards commodity production, Botswana was cast in the role of a stagnant labour supply economy from which it has been only partially rescued by the expansion of cattle exports and mining in the post‐Independence area. This form of capitalist development has been built upon and in turn shaped by the class structure of the pre‐colonial Tswana states. The particular and interrelated consequences for rural Botswana that are explored in this article are 1) a pattern of class formation in which a substantial class of large ranchers have gained dramatically, and some rich peasant agriculturalists significantly, which has emerged largely from a former ruling class and its vassals and clients at the expense of former serfs and commoners, who are becoming an impoverished and partially proletarianized caste of poor peasants; 2) a worsening of the position of women in peasant households, as a result of migrant labour, an increased burden of labour and of responsibility for all aspects of reproduction of the family, at the same time as they are faced with decreasing access to the crucial means of production; 3) a general decline in the food producing capability, especially of the poor peasants, closely linked to a disturbing ‘collapse’ of an often fragile ecology.
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Bibliographic Note
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