Browsing by Author "D'Arcy Nell, Dawn"

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    'You cannot make the people scientific by Act of Parliament' : farmers, the State and livestock enumeration in the North-western Cape, c. 1850-1900
    (1998) D'Arcy Nell, Dawn; Van Sittert, Lance
    This study investigates the tensions surrounding livestock enumeration in the Cape Colony in the late nineteenth century. The study situates livestock statistics in an historical context which is intended to provide some indication of what these statistics meant for contemporary actors. This study looks at the significance of the enumeration oflivestock by the state, both for the state and for farmers, and focuses specifically on the semi-nomadic 'trekfarming' population ofthree districts of the Cape Colony - ClanwiHiam, Calvinia and Namaqualand - referred to for the purposes of this study as the North-western Cape. Livestock enumeration was considered a central component of the officially-sanctioned fund of 'knowledge' on the colony's livestock that was used as the basis of state policy and pastoral reform interventions. Livestock statistics were also a contentious issue in the colony during this period. While certain sectors of the inhabitants of the colony viewed statistics as an indispensable aspect of 'modern' life and put pressure on the colony's civil service to provide more reliable statistics, other sectors of the population viewed enumeration with suspicion. This thesis looks at the tensions surrounding agricultural statistics, and argues that this contest had its roots in the fact that statistics had come to be regarded as a symbol of the 'progressive' agriculture that was sweeping the colony during this period. Ultimately, however, the effectiveness of state knowledge on livestock throughout this period would prove to be constrained by the state's particular preoccupation with the growth of 'progressive' agriculture. Gaps existed in official knowledge on agriculture in the colony which would allow farmers in outlying regions such as the North-western Cape a degree of liberty in their farming practices and use of natural resources.