Challenging Minorities, Difference and Tribal Citizenship in Botswana

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Periodical article

Title:	Challenging Minorities, Difference and Tribal Citizenship in Botswana
Author:	Werbner, Richard
Year:	2002
Periodical:	Journal of Southern African Studies
Volume:	28
Issue:	4
Period:	December
Pages:	671-684
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Botswana
Subjects:	2000 ethnic groups minority groups nationality conference papers (form) Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Ethnic and Race Relations Politics and Government Law, Human Rights and Violence
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/823346
Abstract:	Public debate about ethnic minorities in Botswana is ambiguous, struggling to reconcile problems of the ethnic, the tribal, the regional and the national, of new and old. Because it is rich in legacies from the colonial past of the Protectorate, the debate is apparently old. And yet it is a new debate. It is addressed to demands for a better future, it is politicized by fresh claims and interests, and it draws, often through the internet, on a global, now neo-liberal rhetoric of human rights. This introductory article to a special issue on minorities and citizenship in Botswana gives an overview of the new debate about ethnic minorities in Botswana. It arose from a conference on 'Challenging minorities, difference and tribal citizenship in Botswana', held at the University of Botswana in May 2000, which considered the importance for Botswana of arguments raised by the philosophers Charles Taylor and Will Kymlicka about the politics of recognition, multiculturalism and citizenship. Notes, ref.