
Environment, Knowledge, and Injustice in Lesotho
The Poverty of Progress
Christopher Conz(Author)
Boydell & Brewer (Publisher)
Will be published approx. on 19. August 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
282 pages
978-1-84701-399-6 (ISBN)
Description
Shows that a fraught historical process was at work in which Basotho drew on local and global sources of knowledge and how this small nation surrounded by South Africa can serve as a valuable case-study for wider conversations about 'progress' and 'modernization' in the Global South.
Both place-based environmental history and global intellectual history, this book explores the politics of environment, agriculture, poverty, development, and science in Lesotho. Drawing on diverse experiences with this landlocked, mountainous nation, and based on bilingual archival and oral history research in Sesotho and English, the book examines how Basotho intellectuals, farmers, migrant workers, chiefs, experts, and politicians formed vernacular ideas of tsoelopele (progress) amid the structural violence of colonialism and capitalism in southern Africa. Rather than a unidirectional flow of 'enlightened' knowledge from Europe to Africa, the study shows that a fraught historical process was at work in which Basotho drew on local and global sources of knowledge, from ancestral agricultural practices to colonial soil science and from African American missionaries to African nationalists in Ghana. Basotho ideas about tsoelopele, it is argued, informed the many political, social, and environmental innovations that enabled survival within a sea of white supremacy and that underpin approaches to development in independent Lesotho. Throughout, the book shows how this small nation surrounded by South Africa can serve as a valuable case-study for wider conversations about 'progress' and 'modernization' in the Global South.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Woodbridge
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Illustrations
3 maps and 11 b/w illus.
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-84701-399-6 (9781847013996)
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
07/2024
1st Edition
Boydell & Brewer Ltd
€48.99
Available for download

Book
07/2024
James Currey
€120.20
Shipment within 3-4 weeks

E-Book
07/2024
1st Edition
De Gruyter
€48.99
Available for download
Person
Christopher R. Conz
Content
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Selected Sesotho Terms Used
Introduction
1. Making a Place in the Mountains
2. Animals, Pests, and the Politics of Veterinary Knowledge
3. Forestry in an Imperial Watershed
4. Soil, Progress, and Preserving the Status Quo
5. Agriculture, Knowledge, and Paths of Progress
6. Nutrition in the Era of Decolonization
Conclusion
Bibliography