For three decades, I have been documenting the lives of the Ju/’hoansi people of the north-western Kalahari, and their often traumatic encounter with modernity. The Ju/’hoansi are perhaps the best known of the handful of societies who still sustained themselves by hunting and gathering well into the 20th century. And to them, little about the relentlessly expanding global economy makes sense.
Why, they asked me, did government officials who sat in airconditioned offices drinking coffee and chatting all day long get paid so much more than the young men they sent out to dig ditches? Why, when people were paid […]
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