Relational Displacement and the Colonial Legacies of Copper Mining in the Kalahari Copperbelt Region of Botswana.

The article focuses on the relational impacts of copper mining-induced displacement on BaHerero and Ovambanderu cattle farmers in the Toteng region of Botswana. Drawing on interviews and oral histories, it reveals how displacement by international mining companies disrupted not only farmers' access to land and livestock but also severed social ties with family and neighbors, altered human-wildlife interactions, and reshaped economic and land tenure relations. The research emphasizes the importance of Indigenous and postcolonial perspectives in understanding displacement as a process that affects both human and nonhuman life-worlds, extending beyond material loss to include emotional, spiritual, and interspecies connections. It highlights the inadequacy of current compensation and mitigation strategies, showing how displacement reverberates through complex networks of relationships and challenges conventional development narratives.