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 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
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| Title: | Cosmopolitan Ethnicity, Entrepreneurship and the Nation: Minority Elites in Botswana |
| Author: | Werbner, Richard |
| Year: | 2002 |
| Periodical: | Journal of Southern African Studies |
| Volume: | 28 |
| Issue: | 4 |
| Period: | December |
| Pages: | 731-753 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Botswana |
| Subjects: | ethnic relations Kalanga ethnicity minority groups elite Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Ethnic and Race Relations Urbanization and Migration Development and Technology Economics and Trade |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/823349 |
| Abstract: | The build-up of inter-ethnic partnerships and alliances by minority elites is a remarkable accomplishment, in the face of the majoritarian fears of 'the takeover' and 'the hidden agenda' - the popular imagining of an ethnic conspiracy consciously directed by the few against the many. This article examines that inter-ethnic accomplishment and the entrepreneurship of nationally prominent Kalanga elites in Botswana. Mainly former top civil servants turned entrepreneurs, originally from the north of Botswana, they are now the best-positioned minority elites in the capital in the south. The analysis resolves a linked set of apparent paradoxes. The first is that Kalanga elites merge urban cosmopolitanism with assertions of their ethnic identity, linguistic difference, distinct cultural heritage and ties to their rural homes. The second relates to the boundary-crossing legacies in the postcolonial present from the colonial and precolonial past: that Kalanga elites, coming from the borderland of Botswana and Zimbabwe, orient their ethnicity towards the nation and also beyond it, internationally. That super-tribalism and nationbuilding in Botswana march ahead together is the third paradox. Notes, ref., sum. (Journal abstract, edited) |
