Chieftaincy and the Negotiation of Might and Right in Botswana Democracy

Studies of agency are sorely needed if we are to avoid overemphasising structures and essentialist perceptions on chieftaincy and the cultural communities that claim and are claimed by it. Using Botswana as a case in point, this chapter argues that Africans are far from giving up chieftaincy or from making completely modern institutions of it. No one, it seems, is too “citizen” to be “subject” as well, not even in southern Africa where there have been the most “expectatations of modernity” (see Ferguson 1999:1–81), nor in Botswana as Africa’s best example of liberal democracy (see Mazonde 2002; Werbner 2002a). Invented, distorted, appropriated or not, chieftaincy remains part of the cultural and political landscapes, but is constantly negotiating and renegotiating with new encounters and changing material realities. The results are chiefs and chiefdoms that are neither completely traditional nor completely modern. Being African is neither exclusively a matter of tradition and culture, nor exclusively a matter of modernity and citizenship. It is being a melting pot of multiple identities. Hence, an idea of democracy too narrowly confined to the cosmetics of “the liberal model” (see Good 2002) would hardly accommodate and account for the reality of conviviality between individual and community interests that emphasises negotiation between rules and processes, subjection and citizenship, might and right in any democracy in action. Real democracy means muchmore than the right to vote or to be voted for, especially as these rights do not always deliver the recognition, representation and entitlements that individuals and groups seek in any given context.