Discourses of Poor Work Ethic in Botswana: A Historical Perspective, 1930–2010

Abstract

This article analyses discourses of poor work ethic in Botswana from the colonial 1930s to the first decade of the new millennium. The traditional Batswana ethos stressed the importance of hard work, but in the early 1930s British colonial administrators had begun to complain about the Batswana chiefs, leading to colonial policy changes intended to address attitudes to work. Despite these changes, the issue of poor work ethic remained a critical topic of discussion by the colonial hierarchy in the mid-1940s, and a long-running debate has continued ever since, targeted today at the post-colonial public service. This article shows how debates about poor work ethic intensified in the post-colony owing to political patronage, corruption and politicisation of the public service by Botswana's ruling élite. This discourse describes the erosion of a traditional ethos of self-help and self-reliance and decries its replacement by a syndrome of over-dependence on the state by the people....