Hunting Justice

Maria Sapignoli is Research Fellow in the Department of Law and Anthropology at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology. Since 2006 she has carried out ethnographic work in Botswana, most recently in Namibia, and in several international organizations, including the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. She is the author of numerous articles and book chapters. She is the co-editor of Palaces of Hope: The Anthropology of the Global Organizations (Cambridge, 2017).

'The legal battle waged by the San to defend their livelihoods from a history of dispossession has made their remote villages in the Central Kalahari into an epic battle-ground for elemental human rights and values. Sapignoli's meticulous account of this contest makes plain the complex mix of actors or interests in play, the daunting odds - and ever-present threat of appropriation - arraigned against her beleaguered litigants. Yet she mounts a compelling case against too simple a dismissal of the uses of insurgent lawfare: the San hunt for justice was no simple victory; but it has reshaped them as legal subjects, enabling new visions of entitlement and possibility.' John Comaroff and Jean Comaroff, Harvard University, Massachusetts

• 1. Introduction; 2. Unsettling the Central Kalahari; 3. The 'bushman problem'; 4. Getting organized: the social lives of San NGOs; 5. The San in the United Nations; 6. The court; 7. After judgment; 8. Litigating for a way of life; 9. Conclusions.