ABSTRACT
Indigenous social movements can be viewed both as a response to mistreatment and human rights violations and as efforts by indigenous peoples to assert their identities and rights. In many parts of the world, including the Republic of Botswana in Southern Africa, the category of 'indigenous peoples' has been contested. Botswana is the country where indigenous peoples brought legal cases against the Government which were based in part on arguments about indigeneity. At the same time, the Government argued that it was necessary to 'modernize' the peoples of the Central Kalahari and provide them with social services in fixed locations outside the reserve. The legal strategy was possible thanks to the collaboration of local, regional and international and this collaboration lasted till 2004, when the first court case started and the major players in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) case became the London-based NGO, Survival International (SI) and First People of the Kalahari.
