James Suzman
Writing & Photography
James Suzman
"I do not know what it is that make a Bushman a Bushman. But I know that the Bushmen are always under others. And that it is the Hereros and the Boers that keep us down. It is them who say that we are Bushmen. That we are just things from the bush."
Jacobus Carstens- Skoonheid Resettlement Camp 1995
About Things From the Bush
With a head full of Laurens van der Post and half an anthropology degree from St Andrews University under his belt, James Suzman hitched a ride into Botswana’s eastern Kalahari in June 1991. He has been working with the Bushmen ever since.
He remains involved in a number of Kalahari initiatives in support mainly of community organisations and NGOs .
These photographs span twenty years of work among and friendship with the San/Bushman peoples of the Kalahari Basin. The portraits here celebrate the beauty that lies beneath the veneer of social collapse and poverty among Ju/'hoansi of Namibia's Omaheke Region and the Hai//om of Etosha National Park in Namibia.
About James Suzman
SELECTED ACADEMIC AND APPLIED RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS
The Legacy of Namibia's Generational Farm-working Community In Neither Here Nor There Willem Odendaal (ed), Legal Assistance Centre, Windhoek, 2020
Minorities in Independent Namibia- Minority Rights Group: London: 50 pages 2002
An Assessment of the Status of Namibia’s San Population, Regional Assessment of the Status of the San in Southern Africa Volume 4. Legal Assistance Centre, Windhoek, Namibia- ISBN 99916-765-61, 206 pages2001
The Regional Assessment of the Status of the San in Southern Africa: An Introduction, Regional Assessment of the Status of the San in Southern Africa Volume 1, ISBN 99916-765-3-8, 100 pages2001
(Editor)The Regional Assessment of the Status of the San in Southern African Volumes 2,3,5 (South Africa, Angola, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia) Legal Assistance Centre, Windhoek. 400 pages2001
Things from the Bush; A Contemporary History of the Omaheke Bushmen, Introduced by Robert Gordon, P. Schlettwein Publishing, Basel. ISBN 3—908193-06-0, 218 pages, 2000
Commission of Inquiry into Labour Related Matters Concerning Agricultural and Domestic Workers in Namibia. Government Printer: Windhoek, ISBN 0-86976-404-71997 (with Fitchatt, S. and published under Republic of Namibia) 1998
In the Margins: A Qualitative Examination of the Status of Farm Workers in the Omaheke Region of Namibia, Research Series No. 1 on behalf of the Commission of Inquiry into the Living and Working conditions of Farmworkers in Namibia., Legal Assistance Centre, Windhoek, Namibia, ISBN 99916-730-08, 64 pages 1995
Diamonds, De Beers and Defying the Resources Curse, Mining, People and the Environment, Jan/Feb 2010
Hunting for Histories; Rethinking Historicity in the Western Kalahari in Barnard A (ed) Hunter-Gatherers In History, Archaeology And Anthropology , Berg Books 2004
Etosha Dreams: An historical Account of the Hai//om Predicament; Journal of Modern African Studies 42 (2) 2004
Diamonds or Development New African Magazine June 2003: London 2003
Blaming the Messenger- A reply Before Farming the Archaeology of Old World Hunter Gatherers Issue VOL 3 (1) 2003
A Future After Survival – Weekly Mail and Guardian, South Africa November 2003
Difference, Domination and “Under-development”- In Winterfeld (ed) A Namibian Sociological Reader, Macmillan, Windhoek. 16p2002,
Surviving Survival: Bushmen, Resettlement and Advocacy in the Central Kalahari Botswana Before Farming the Archaeology of Old World Hunter Gatherers Issue 3/2002 2002
Human Rights and Indigenous Wrongs: National Policy International Resolutions and the Status of the San in Southern Africa. In Africa’s Indigenous Minorities: First Peoples or Marginalised Minorities Kenrick and Barnard (eds), CAS (University of Edinburgh) 14p 2001
Community Based Natural Resource Management in the Omaheke: Desert Research Foundation of Namibia, Windhoek, 47 pages1997
A Base-Line Socio-Economic Survey of the Omaheke Region; Oxfam Canada, Windhoek. 60 pages1997
Poverty, Land and Power in the Omaheke Region, Oxfam UK&I: Windhoek 50 pages1995
Hunting for Histories; Rethinking Historicity in the Western Kalahari in Barnard A (ed) Hunter-Gatherers In - History, Archaeology And Anthropology , Berg Books 2004
-Etosha Dreams: An historical Account of the Hai//om Predicament; Journal of Modern African Studies 2004
-Blaming the Messenger- A reply Before Farming the Archaeology of Old World Hunter Gatherers Issue VOL 3 (1) (www.waspjournals.com/journal_20032/news/20032_14.pdf ) 2003
A Future After Survival – Weekly Mail and Guardian, South Africa Novembers 2003
Ideology Identity and Social Change: Deconstructing the Bushmen University of St Andrews, MA 1993
Review of Hunters and Gatherers in the Modern World- Biesele and Hitchcock (eds) American Anthropologist 103 (2) 2001
Commentary on Adam Kuper’s Return of the Native Current Anthropology- 44 no 3. 2003
Review of Sidsel Saugestad’s Inconvenient Indigenous, Journal of Southern African Studies Vol. 28 no 4. 850-851 2003
Review of Susan Kent (ed) Ethnicity Hunter-Gatherers and the “Other”: Association or Assimilation in Africa. Journal of Southern African Studies. 2004