Commentary On The Naming Of Bushmen In Southern Kalahari

The intention of “Ons is Boesmans”: commentary on the naming of Bushmen in the southern Kalahari is to clarify a thorough procedure of name selection that construe a distinct localized set of responses to certain strategies, governmental, social, and economic or any other circumstances that overcome and exercise authority in the people’s lives. The course of choosing a suitable name to call themselves does not transpire outside of its contexts and embeddedness in the culture, nor does it occur in a vacuity. It is necessary to concisely state what the general examination is: Academic discourse declared that the terms Bushman/ Boesman are racist, derogatory and even a little sexist, thus it should be stricken from accustomed discourse. In its

This argument is very distinctive because within the community itself there are unique views on their ethnic identity. Whilst Academics view the term “Boesman/Bushmen” as ‘racist, derogatory, and even sexist’ term, the ethnic community itself proudly proclaim “ons is boesmans”, and consider the term ‘Khoisan’ to be lesser and looked down on since it means “a person who gathers”. It is evident that ethnicity is a very broad and exclusive term which can be interpreted and understood in exceedingly diverse ways. Ethnicity is a concept which is very exclusive because it’s directly proportional to the degree to which essence, reference frame, and sociological elements are taken for granted. This is shown in Ellis’ paper when he discusses how the community is “confined to a name”. Ellis argues that the term “San” carried no significance for many of the San, and the only time they ever hear the term is in situations of power. Whilst the Khwe are actively occupied in the process of creating an identity for themselves, and changing the meaning of the name claimed for themselves, others believe that the name “San” is a one-sided matter which stemmed from academic