This study of the changes in the settlement pattern in EastCentral
Botswana over the last two decades is concerned with the
way in which social space was redefined when new village
communities emerged in areas which had formerly been known as
open agricultural zones. In tracing the struggles of people in four
cases of village emergence to redefine their rights over land,
collective identities, and social histories, the article not only
explores a critical phase in the social history of group relationships
in Botswana but also raises for discussion larger questions about the relationships between spatial organization on the one
hand and political and cultural systems on the other.