5 - Gaborone is Growing like a Baby: Life Expectancies and Death Expectations in Urban Botswana
Corresponding Author(s) : Mieka S. Ritsema
Africa Development,
Vol. 33 No. 3 (2008): Africa Development
Abstract
This article examines the paradox of Botswana’s twin reputations: first, success- ful national development and second, premature death from the HIV/AIDS epi- demic. While locating these reputations in the capital city, Gaborone, the article analyzes reflections of people who are themselves the audience for, and partici- pants in, the country’s development. Ethnographic data reveal a dramatic shift in discourse by generational cohort in terms of explaining the apparent contra- diction of successful development in the midst of tragedy. The article shows how official discourses of development and death are appropriated by a younger generation in Gaborone, in ways unanticipated in a meta-narrative of modernity. The emotional anguish of an older generation is absent in a younger genera- tion’s expectation that development goes hand-in-hand with funerals. The shift in perspective that is instantiated in Gaborone, reflects a profound transforma- tion in the relationship between the production of knowledge and the state’s expanding capacity since independence in 1966. This study contributes to the literature on development, modernity, African cities and the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
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- Addo, Herb, 1986, Imperialism: The Permanent Stage of Capitalism, Tokyo: United Nations University.
- Ake, C., 1995, Democracy and Development in Africa, Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.
- Alverson, Hoyt, 1978, Mind in the Heart of Darkness: Value and Self-Identity among the Tswana of Southern Africa, New Haven: Yale University Press.
- Amin, S., 1977, Imperialism and Unequal Development, New York: Monthly Review Press.
- Anderson, B., 1991, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London: Verso.
- Appadurai, A., 1996, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
- Bruun, F. J., Mugabe, M. and Coombes, Y., 1994, ‘The Situation of the Elderly in Botswana: Proceedings from an International Workshop’, Gaborone, Botswana and Oslo, Norway: National Institute of Development Research and Documentation, University of Botswana and Centre for Development and Environment, University of Oslo.
- Caldeira, T. P. R., 1996, ‘Fortified Enclaves: The New Urban Segregation’ in Setha M. Low, ed., Theorizing the City: The New Urban Anthropology Reader, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, pp. 83–107.
- Chipfakacha, V. G., 1997, ‘STD/HIV/AIDS Knowledge, Beliefs and Practices of Traditional Healers in Botswana’, AIDS CARE 9(4): 417–425.
- Cohn, B. S., 1996, Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge in India, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press.
- Comaroff, J. and J. L. Comaroff, 1999, ‘Occult Economies and the Violence of Abstraction: Notes from the South African Postcolony’, American Ethnologist 26(2): 279–303.
- Davis, M., 1992, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles, New York: Vintage Books.
- Davis, Mike, 2006, Planet of Slums, London: Verso.
- Durham, D., 2002, ‘Love and Jealousy in the Space of Death’, Ethnos 67(2):155–180.
- Durham, D., 2004, ‘Disappearing Youth: Youth as a Social Shifter in Botswana’, American Ethnologist 31(4): 589–605.
- Durham, D. and Klaits, F.., 2002, ‘Funerals and the Public Space of Sentiment in Botswana’, Journal of Southern African Studies 28(4).
- Escobar, A., 1995, Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
- Ferguson, J., 1999, Expectations of Modernity: Myths and Meanings of Urban Life on the Zambian Copperbelt, Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Foucault, M., 1991, ‘Governmentality’ in Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon, and Peter Miller, eds., The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Frank, A. G., 1967, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America, New York: Monthly Review Press.
- Good, K., 1992, ‘Interpreting the Exceptionality of Botswana’, Journal of Modern African Studies 30(1): 69–95.
- Government of Botswana, 1994, Greater Gaborone Structure Plan (1994–2014), Government of Botswana, Department of Town and Regional Planning.
- Government of Botswana, 2001, ‘2001 Population and Housing Census: Preliminary Results Brief’, Gaborone, Botswana: Central Statistics Office.
- Government of Botswana, 2003a, National Development Plan 9: 2003/04-2008/ 9, Gaborone, Botswana: Government Printer.
- Government of Botswana, 2003b, Business in Botswana: Economic Information. Electronic document, http://www.gov.bw/businesss/index.html, accessed 10 November 2003.
- Gulbrandsen, O., 1994, Poverty in the Midst of Plenty, Bergen: Norse Publications.
- Holston, J., 1989, The Modernist City: An Anthropological Critique of Brasilia, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Houngnikpo, M. C., 2006, Africa’s Elusive Quest for Development, New York: Palgrave.
- Ingstad, B., 1990, ‘The Cultural Construction of AIDS and its Consequences for Prevention in Botswana’, Medical Anthropology Quarterly 4(1): 28–40.
- Ingstad, B., 2004, ‘The Value of Grandchildren: Changing Relations between Generations in Botswana’, Africa 74(1).
- Ingstad, B., Bruun, F. J. and Tlou, S., 1997, ‘AIDS and the Elderly Tswana: The Concept of Pollution and Consequences for AIDS Prevention’, Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology 12: 357–372.
- Kertzer, D. I., 1983, ‘Generation as a Sociological Problem’, Annual Review of Sociology 9:125–149.
- Klaits, F., 2005, ‘The Widow in Blue: Blood and the Morality of Remembering in Botswana’s Time of AIDS’, Africa 75(1).
- Lambek, M. and Solway, J. S., 2001, ‘Just Anger: Scenarios of Indignation in Botswana and Madagascar’, Ethnos 66(1): 49–72.
- Livingston, J., 2005, Debility and the Moral Imagination in Botswana, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
- Macamo, E. S., 2005, Negotiating Modernity: Africa’s Ambivalent Experience, London: Zed Books.
- Mmegi, 2003, ‘Victory against AIDS Beckons’, 31 January to 6 February 2003. Mogae, F., 2005, ‘Keynote Address’, International AIDS Society Conference on Pathogenesis and Treatment, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 24–27 July.
- Moore, D. S., 2000, ‘The Crucible of Cultural Politics: Reworking ‘Development in Zimbabwe’s Eastern Highlands’, American Ethnologist 26(3): 654–689.
- National Aids Coordinating Agency, 2002, ‘Botswana 2002 Second Generation HIV/AIDS Surveillance: A Technical Report’, Gaborone, Botswana: Government Printer.
- Nyamnjoh, F. B., 2003, ‘Chieftancy and the Negotiation of Might and Right in Botswana Democracy’, Journal of Contemporary African Studies 21(2):233– 250.
- Pels, P., 1997, ‘The Anthropology of Colonialism: Culture, History, and the Emergence of Western Governmentality’, Annual Review of Anthropology 26: 163–183.
- Rahnema, M. and Bawtree, V., 1997, The Post-Development Reader, London: Zed Books.
- Rist, G., 2002, The History of Development: From Western Origins to Global Faith, London: Zed Books.
- Ritsema, M., 2005, ‘Gaborone is Growing like a Baby: Social and Spatial Transformations in Botswana’s Capital City’, unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Yale University.
- Robinson, J., 2000, ‘(Im)mobilizing Space – Dreaming of Change’, in H. Judin and I. Vladiskavic, eds., Blank—Architecture, Apartheid and After, Rotterdam: NAI Publishers.
- Samatar, A. I., 1999, An African Miracle: State and Class Leadership and Colonial Legacy in Botswana Development, Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
- Schapera, I., 1940, Married Life in an African Tribe, London: Faber.
- Schapera, I., 1947, Migrant Labour and Tribal Life: A Study of Conditions on the Bechuanaland Protectorate, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Scott, J., 1998, Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition have Failed, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
- Simone, A., 2004, For the City Yet to Come: Changing African Life in Four Cities, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
- Stiglitz, J. E., 2002, Globalization and Its Discontents, New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
- UNAIDS, UNICEF and WHO, 2002, ‘Botswana Epidemiological Fact Sheets on HIV/AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections’, Electronic document, http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/pdf/UNAIDS/Botswana_en.pdf, accessed 13 January 2004.
- United Nations Integrated Regional Information Networks, 2003, ‘Botswana Deemed Least Corrupt in WEF Survey’, Electronic document, www.irinnews.org, accessed 12 June 2003.
- Werbner, R., 2002, ‘Introduction: Challenging Minorities, Difference and Tribal Citizenship in Botswana’, Journal of Southern African Studies 28(4): 671–684.
- Werbner, R., 2004, Reasonable Radicals and Citizenship in Botswana: The Public Anthropology of Kalanga Elites, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. World Bank, 2001, ‘Beating the Resource Curse: The Case of Botswana’, Environment Paper (October), by Maria Sarraf and Moortaza Jiwanji.
- Zaffiro, J. J., 1994, ‘Facing Up to a Crisis: The Politics of AIDS Policy in Botswana’, Scandinavian Journal of Development Alternatives 13(1 and 2): 79–111.
References
Addo, Herb, 1986, Imperialism: The Permanent Stage of Capitalism, Tokyo: United Nations University.
Ake, C., 1995, Democracy and Development in Africa, Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.
Alverson, Hoyt, 1978, Mind in the Heart of Darkness: Value and Self-Identity among the Tswana of Southern Africa, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Amin, S., 1977, Imperialism and Unequal Development, New York: Monthly Review Press.
Anderson, B., 1991, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London: Verso.
Appadurai, A., 1996, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Bruun, F. J., Mugabe, M. and Coombes, Y., 1994, ‘The Situation of the Elderly in Botswana: Proceedings from an International Workshop’, Gaborone, Botswana and Oslo, Norway: National Institute of Development Research and Documentation, University of Botswana and Centre for Development and Environment, University of Oslo.
Caldeira, T. P. R., 1996, ‘Fortified Enclaves: The New Urban Segregation’ in Setha M. Low, ed., Theorizing the City: The New Urban Anthropology Reader, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, pp. 83–107.
Chipfakacha, V. G., 1997, ‘STD/HIV/AIDS Knowledge, Beliefs and Practices of Traditional Healers in Botswana’, AIDS CARE 9(4): 417–425.
Cohn, B. S., 1996, Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge in India, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press.
Comaroff, J. and J. L. Comaroff, 1999, ‘Occult Economies and the Violence of Abstraction: Notes from the South African Postcolony’, American Ethnologist 26(2): 279–303.
Davis, M., 1992, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles, New York: Vintage Books.
Davis, Mike, 2006, Planet of Slums, London: Verso.
Durham, D., 2002, ‘Love and Jealousy in the Space of Death’, Ethnos 67(2):155–180.
Durham, D., 2004, ‘Disappearing Youth: Youth as a Social Shifter in Botswana’, American Ethnologist 31(4): 589–605.
Durham, D. and Klaits, F.., 2002, ‘Funerals and the Public Space of Sentiment in Botswana’, Journal of Southern African Studies 28(4).
Escobar, A., 1995, Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Ferguson, J., 1999, Expectations of Modernity: Myths and Meanings of Urban Life on the Zambian Copperbelt, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Foucault, M., 1991, ‘Governmentality’ in Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon, and Peter Miller, eds., The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Frank, A. G., 1967, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America, New York: Monthly Review Press.
Good, K., 1992, ‘Interpreting the Exceptionality of Botswana’, Journal of Modern African Studies 30(1): 69–95.
Government of Botswana, 1994, Greater Gaborone Structure Plan (1994–2014), Government of Botswana, Department of Town and Regional Planning.
Government of Botswana, 2001, ‘2001 Population and Housing Census: Preliminary Results Brief’, Gaborone, Botswana: Central Statistics Office.
Government of Botswana, 2003a, National Development Plan 9: 2003/04-2008/ 9, Gaborone, Botswana: Government Printer.
Government of Botswana, 2003b, Business in Botswana: Economic Information. Electronic document, http://www.gov.bw/businesss/index.html, accessed 10 November 2003.
Gulbrandsen, O., 1994, Poverty in the Midst of Plenty, Bergen: Norse Publications.
Holston, J., 1989, The Modernist City: An Anthropological Critique of Brasilia, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Houngnikpo, M. C., 2006, Africa’s Elusive Quest for Development, New York: Palgrave.
Ingstad, B., 1990, ‘The Cultural Construction of AIDS and its Consequences for Prevention in Botswana’, Medical Anthropology Quarterly 4(1): 28–40.
Ingstad, B., 2004, ‘The Value of Grandchildren: Changing Relations between Generations in Botswana’, Africa 74(1).
Ingstad, B., Bruun, F. J. and Tlou, S., 1997, ‘AIDS and the Elderly Tswana: The Concept of Pollution and Consequences for AIDS Prevention’, Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology 12: 357–372.
Kertzer, D. I., 1983, ‘Generation as a Sociological Problem’, Annual Review of Sociology 9:125–149.
Klaits, F., 2005, ‘The Widow in Blue: Blood and the Morality of Remembering in Botswana’s Time of AIDS’, Africa 75(1).
Lambek, M. and Solway, J. S., 2001, ‘Just Anger: Scenarios of Indignation in Botswana and Madagascar’, Ethnos 66(1): 49–72.
Livingston, J., 2005, Debility and the Moral Imagination in Botswana, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Macamo, E. S., 2005, Negotiating Modernity: Africa’s Ambivalent Experience, London: Zed Books.
Mmegi, 2003, ‘Victory against AIDS Beckons’, 31 January to 6 February 2003. Mogae, F., 2005, ‘Keynote Address’, International AIDS Society Conference on Pathogenesis and Treatment, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 24–27 July.
Moore, D. S., 2000, ‘The Crucible of Cultural Politics: Reworking ‘Development in Zimbabwe’s Eastern Highlands’, American Ethnologist 26(3): 654–689.
National Aids Coordinating Agency, 2002, ‘Botswana 2002 Second Generation HIV/AIDS Surveillance: A Technical Report’, Gaborone, Botswana: Government Printer.
Nyamnjoh, F. B., 2003, ‘Chieftancy and the Negotiation of Might and Right in Botswana Democracy’, Journal of Contemporary African Studies 21(2):233– 250.
Pels, P., 1997, ‘The Anthropology of Colonialism: Culture, History, and the Emergence of Western Governmentality’, Annual Review of Anthropology 26: 163–183.
Rahnema, M. and Bawtree, V., 1997, The Post-Development Reader, London: Zed Books.
Rist, G., 2002, The History of Development: From Western Origins to Global Faith, London: Zed Books.
Ritsema, M., 2005, ‘Gaborone is Growing like a Baby: Social and Spatial Transformations in Botswana’s Capital City’, unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Yale University.
Robinson, J., 2000, ‘(Im)mobilizing Space – Dreaming of Change’, in H. Judin and I. Vladiskavic, eds., Blank—Architecture, Apartheid and After, Rotterdam: NAI Publishers.
Samatar, A. I., 1999, An African Miracle: State and Class Leadership and Colonial Legacy in Botswana Development, Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Schapera, I., 1940, Married Life in an African Tribe, London: Faber.
Schapera, I., 1947, Migrant Labour and Tribal Life: A Study of Conditions on the Bechuanaland Protectorate, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Scott, J., 1998, Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition have Failed, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Simone, A., 2004, For the City Yet to Come: Changing African Life in Four Cities, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Stiglitz, J. E., 2002, Globalization and Its Discontents, New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
UNAIDS, UNICEF and WHO, 2002, ‘Botswana Epidemiological Fact Sheets on HIV/AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections’, Electronic document, http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/pdf/UNAIDS/Botswana_en.pdf, accessed 13 January 2004.
United Nations Integrated Regional Information Networks, 2003, ‘Botswana Deemed Least Corrupt in WEF Survey’, Electronic document, www.irinnews.org, accessed 12 June 2003.
Werbner, R., 2002, ‘Introduction: Challenging Minorities, Difference and Tribal Citizenship in Botswana’, Journal of Southern African Studies 28(4): 671–684.
Werbner, R., 2004, Reasonable Radicals and Citizenship in Botswana: The Public Anthropology of Kalanga Elites, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. World Bank, 2001, ‘Beating the Resource Curse: The Case of Botswana’, Environment Paper (October), by Maria Sarraf and Moortaza Jiwanji.
Zaffiro, J. J., 1994, ‘Facing Up to a Crisis: The Politics of AIDS Policy in Botswana’, Scandinavian Journal of Development Alternatives 13(1 and 2): 79–111.