This is a summary of the fifth and last cross-cutting theme outlined in the book Contested Karoo: Interdisciplinary perspectives on change and continuity in South Africa’s drylands, edited by Cherryl Walker and M. Timm Hoffman. For an introductory post summarising all five themes, click here. The book and its themes were discussed at the 2024 Conference of the Arid Zone Ecology Forum (AZEF), which was held in Calvinia on 8-10 October. We hope to carry a report on the conference soon.
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THE AUTHORS begin this section by stating: ‘Clearly threaded throughout all four themes discussed previously is the issue of power — most immediately, the unequal power relations embedded in the forces implicated in both change and continuity in the Karoo.’ The remainder of this section is summarised below:
A social and ecological sustainability goal
‘If social and ecological sustainability is the goal, then the specificity of how power functions in different contexts needs unpacking – its nature, scale and history.
The role of technology in the exercise of power
‘Central to the history of the Karoo since colonial times has been the assertion of power over not only local people but also the environment, by external forces with technology on their side.
Looking backwards, and forwards, to local institutions
[A key point emerging from the study is] …‘The weakness of local institutions as vehicles through which Karoo residents have been able to give voice to their aspirations and influence the developments taking place in their backyards.’
Challenges of organisation in the face of space, movement, communications, and national media
‘The challenges of organising in a region as large and poorly served in terms of transport, communications and national media coverage as the Karoo are immense.
The power of the biophysical environment
‘What researching land use changes in a semi-arid region like the Karoo makes clear is the importance of understanding the power of the biophysical environment when one is analysing continuity and change – the ways in which water, weather, topography and plant and animal life have interacted to create certain conditions that influence (in non-linear ways) how social and economic relationships have unfolded over time. …
Questioning changing class relations in the Karoo
‘Today (assertion of power) involved a more diverse set of natural and global actors who are investing in both extractivist and “green” land uses . …
‘… However, there are important changes under way in the social identity of who exercises power nationally and locally and how, and these changes need to be unpacked further as well’.
‘…. More research is needed on merging class dynamics in the Karoo, as the social and economic power of white land owners is constrained, and a small cohort of black professionals and politicians claim the levers of power in local government’.
Tracking research
‘The narratives of change and continuity …where the subjugated black majority was economically useful but politically excluded before 1994, but has since found themselves politically useful as voters but economically superfluous….’
Posing an overwhelming broad citizen challenge to today and tomorrow
’While the available evidence points to the continued marginalisation of most Karoo residents, the advent of formal democracy raises an important question: … how can peoples’ political citizenship be better leveraged … ?’
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FEATURED IMAGE: Public meeting, Strategic Environmental Assessment for Shale Gas Development, Beaufort West, 2016. (Stephanie Borchardt)