Traces and Tracks

“My work has over the past 30 years sought to work against an essentialised mythologised view of the San. But for those who have grappled with the story of the modern San, it is neither monolithic nor one dimensional. My journey has brought me into contact with a range of exceptional people from NGO activists to development workers, from journalists and filmmakers to academics who work with the San, and like me, have grappled to answer questions for a fragile culture and attempt to tell their story. The 113000 San live in three different countries and speak many different languages. While dispossession seems to be a common thread, the story of the San, differs from region to region, place to place, community to community. This book engages with San communities, and attempts to document how recent chapters of history present new challenges and opportunities.” – Paul Weinberg Given that in the past the San were considered ‘vermin’ and there were proclamations to shoot them on site, the public identity of anyone with San ancestry was highly precarious in the 18th and 19th centuries. During the apartheid period, when the country was strictly racialised, there was no category for San or ‘Bushmen’. San people became subsumed under the title ‘coloured’. Nowadays the San are revered for their encyclopaedic knowledge about the environment and their way of life.