The heart of the cheetah: Biography, identity and social change in north-western Namibia

Abstract

This ethnographic collaboration between filmmaker, anthropologist and translator aims to make visible the often unacknowledged life-story of the translator whose particular positioning as ‘cultural broker’ between ethnographers and indigenous communities is unmapped. By micro-mapping the interaction between place and personhood, this paper explores the possibilities of biography for understanding the politics of geography over time and the role of the individual and the individuation process. The particular life story of Mukuena Cornelius Tjiuma, a self-identified Himba nomadic herder and consultant/translator, challenges the matrix of stereotypes that bind the Himba to reductionist versions of Himba culture that deny historical and potential processes of social change.