Methodology And Ethics
San Musical Futures is grounded in ethnographic and practice-based research approaches shaped by Indigenous, postcolonial, and decolonial scholarship. Rather than treating methodology as a technical apparatus, the project understands method as an ethical practice, one that responds to the long history of extractive research conducted with San communities and the responsibilities that history demands.
The research prioritises relational engagement, accountability, and sustained presence. Knowledge is approached not as something to be extracted, but as something that emerges through time, dialogue, and negotiated relationships.
Fieldwork and Research Approach
Fieldwork was conducted over multiple research visits between 2022 and 2023 across Ghanzi District, Kgalagadi District, Central, Southern and Northwest District. Methods included participant observation, semi-structured interviews, group discussions, and collaborative audiovisual documentation with San youth, elders, educators, and cultural practitioners.
Research encounters were guided by consent, dialogue, and attentiveness to local cultural protocols, rather than fixed data-collection schedules. Attention was given to language use, pacing, and the conditions under which participants felt comfortable speaking, performing, or choosing not to share certain experiences.
Rather than aiming for representational completeness, the research acknowledges partiality, situatedness, and the limits of what can be known or shown.
Positionality and Reflexivity
The researcher’s positionality is central to the methodological design of this project. Having grown up in the Ghanzi region and lived closely with San communities, while also being shaped by long residence outside Botswana and professional work as a musician and filmmaker, the research is conducted from a position that is neither fully insider nor outsider.
This dual positioning requires ongoing reflexivity, particularly in relation to authority, representation, and expectation. Rather than seeking neutrality or detachment, the project acknowledges emotional entanglement as an inevitable part of ethical ethnographic work. Reflexivity is treated not as self-centering, but as a means of remaining accountable to participants, to the material shared, and to the power relations embedded in research encounters.
Audiovisual Practice as Method
Ethnographic video is treated in this project as a mode of knowledge production rather than as illustration of written analysis. The audiovisual work prioritises voice, duration, and listening, allowing participants to speak and perform in their own languages, rhythms, and expressive forms.
This approach deliberately resists dominant documentary conventions that privilege spectacle, narrative compression, or emotional manipulation. Instead, the videos remain attentive to repetition, silence, hesitation, humour, and fatigue, recognising these as meaningful dimensions of lived experience.
Certain representational absences within the videos, such as the limited use of imagery focused on poverty or deprivation, are the result of ethical judgement exercised in situ. Decisions about what to film, how long to remain with particular scenes, and when to prioritise testimony over visual illustration were shaped by ongoing reflection on dignity, consent, and the risks of reproducing familiar tropes of marginalisation.
The methodological emphasis on duration, on staying with voices rather than extracting them, mirrors the quiet political strategies through which San youth sustain presence, dignity, and control over visibility in everyday life.
Ethics, Consent, and Accountability
All research was conducted in accordance with ethical approval granted by SOAS, University of London, and the San Research Centre at the University of Botswana. Informed consent was obtained in culturally appropriate ways, including oral explanation in local languages where necessary. Participants retained the right to withdraw at any stage, and anonymity was respected where requested.
Ethics in this project extend beyond formal approval processes. They include ongoing negotiation, responsiveness to participant concerns, and attention to how research materials circulate beyond the field. Participants were able to view, respond to, and comment on audiovisual materials produced during the research process.
The accompanying website and ethnographic videos are intended as accessible, non-extractive forms of knowledge sharing. They are designed to remain accountable to the people whose voices and practices they document.
Decolonial Orientation
This research does not claim to “give voice” to San communities. Instead, it seeks to create conditions under which San youth voices can be encountered on their own terms. Decolonisation is understood here not as a completed outcome, but as an ongoing practice of listening, restraint, and reflexivity, particularly in relation to who speaks, who listens, and how knowledge is made legible.
By aligning methodological choices with the cultural strategies documented in the research itself, San Musical Futures treats methodology not as a supplementary appendix, but as a core site of ethical and political engagement.