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Do You Want Your Feet Back?

Barefoot Cobblers

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Table of Contents

3Foot, photographed during fieldwork as part of a biomechanical analysis, Nhoma, Namibia, 2018. © Thomas Nolf

The Ju|’hoansi of Nyae Nyae, Namibia: A Historical and Anthropological Perspective

Robert K. Hitchcock

The AtelierFlora Blommaert

Postscript

04 – 09

26 – 51

108 – 123

70 – 79

132 – 141

142 – 145

84 – 105

Foreword –Future Footprint

Christine De Baan

Feet and How to Shoe Them

Catherine Willems

How Humans Walk and Why Footwear Matters

Kristiaan D’Août

Interviews with Ju|’hoan Cobblers

54100% personalized 3D-printed footwear based on features of indigenous Indian footwear. Ghent, Belgium, 2018. © Thomas Nolf

Foreword –Future Footprint

Christine De Baan

5100% personalized 3D-printed footwear based on features of indigenous Indian footwear. Ghent, Belgium, 2018. © Thomas Nolf

the switch, these villages become more techno­logically advanced in their energy sourcing than their counterparts in the West, circumventing the need for coal, oil, or nuclear energy.

From pre­industrial to post­industrial with the smallest possible footprint: these are great leaps, and necessary ones. We are currently using up our planet at the irrespon­sible rate of 1.7 times its capacity, and the pace is increasing. Every year, Earth Over­shoot Day—when we have taken more from nature than our planet can renew in the entire year—falls on an earlier date. This year it was August 1, meaning that we are living on borrowed time for the last five months of 2018.²

2 The “we” here should be qualified, however: coun-tries like Qatar and Luxembourg already reached this date in February, whereas some African and Asian countries will not reach it at all this year (www.overshootday.org/newsroom/country-over-shoot-days).

It is also becoming clear that “green growth” is not enough: growth itself has become  un sustainable. “Degrowth” is the only way for ward. We need to radically rethink the way we live, produce, and consume.

What makes Catherine Willems’ work¹ on “Future Footwear” so appealing is its promise to leapfrog more than 150 years of industrialization, with all its attendant afflictions—environmental destruction, depletion of natural resources, extreme global inequality—and bring us straight into a cleaner and fairer future, while taking cues from ancient knowledge and craft.

1 Catherine Willems (KASK / School of Arts, Ghent, Belgium) founded Future Footwear Foundation to scale-up concepts that she developed for her doc-toral research at KASK to global activities and sus-tain the convergence beyond term-limited research.

There are other examples of such leapfrogging, though not rooted in craft. Most famous is the arrival in recent decades of satellite dishes in remote rural villages across the Global South, many of which had been unreached by physical telephone lines, sparking new economies, net­works, and knowledge building—particularly after the advent of what has become a most efficient tiny computer, the smartphone. Or the rise of high voltage direct­current systems connected to solar panels, bringing clean, cheap, and renewable energy to previously non­electrified communities. With a flick of

7Cobblers checking the quality of newly arrived eland antelope skins, Jaq’na, Namibia, 2018. © Thomas Nolf

6

The rise of fast fashion is very recent. Only in the last two decades have people in the affluent world gone from having fairly limited wardrobes, with some variation for winter and summer, to the current almost daily glut of buying cheap, hardly­to­be­worn, soon­to­be­discarded items of clothing. Fashion has quickly become the second largest polluting industry in the world, using up precious re­sources and spreading toxic waste, creating an appalling record in income equality, and employing people in dismal working conditions. The fashion industry is realizing much too slowly that it urgently needs to change. It will not “degrow” by itself—there is too much money at stake. Legislation on an international level is needed to decrease the environmental pressure of the industry and raise the living standards of fashion workers. Meanwhile, consumer awareness is growing and people are looking for alternatives.

As the recent exhibition State of Fashion 2018 | searching for the new luxury 3 showed, some of the larger companies are now researching and developing cleaner alternatives—halving the amount of water needed to produce a pair of jeans, for example—and have started monitoring

Seen from the perspective of the earth’s existence (4.5 billion years), the presence of its current destroyer, Homo sapiens, is but a mere flash in time (200,000 years). Even within this limited timeframe of our existence as a species, the industrial era is just a blip. From the tentative perspective of some further millennia of human existence, we should be able to step back and see around it, into a more sensible future. To my mind, that is what Willems does when she looks closely at well­honed, traditional ways of making footwear, perfectly adapted to the natural environment and perfectly suited to the wearer’s feet, with the aim of recreating these qualities in a contemporary, future­oriented way, using materials and techniques with the lightest possible footprint and realizing the highest form of made­to­measure. Her work reminds us that not so long ago all of us wore handmade clothes and shoes, using the materials that came to hand, re­using what we already had, adapting, fitting—naturally bespoke. And we kept and used these few essentials for a long time. Just the other day, my father proudly pointed out that his newly polished, handsome­looking black shoes were more than forty years old.

7|Aice cutting backstraps, Jaq’na, Namibia, 2018. © Thomas Nolf

The Future Footwear Foundation (FFF) can play an important part in this. The research by Willems and her team, also presented in State of Fashion, is unique in bringing three disparate fields together: traditional footwear in three very different indigenous cultures, the biomechanics of the human foot, and advanced technology for 3D measuring and printing. What makes this so interesting is the depth and seriousness of the exploration in each field, resulting in a richness of data and infor­mation which has only just started to yield its first outcomes.

This intense dedication to research and attention to detail might be a typically feminine trait. I am reminded of the deep long­term research into color by Dutch designer Hella Jongerius which, though it finds its applied use in the furniture (Vitra) and aviation industries (KLM), springs from her personal fascination with all aspects and properties of color, and her committed quest to changing our understanding of it and its use in our daily environment. Even without industry partners, her research would continue: first it exists, then comes the demand.

and ameliorating working conditions in clothes factories.

3 Arnhem, the Netherlands, 1 June – 22 July 2018, curated by Jose Teunissen (stateoffashion.org/en.)

H&M (Sweden), the original fast fashion culprit and still in no ways perfect, is currently making some of the largest strides, while G­star RAW (Holland) recently produced their first “Cradle­to­Cradle Gold Level certified denim,” while publicly sharing the process and technology involved. Designers such as Stella McCartney (UK), Oskar Metsavaht (Osklen, Brazil), Amaka Osakwe (Maki Oh, Nigeria), and Mia Morikawa and Shani Himanshu (11.11/eleven eleven, India), are trailblazers in creating and advocating for fairer, cleaner fashion. And increasingly research is being done at universities and fashion schools into alternative sources, materials (algae, fungi, fruit waste), pro­duction methods, and distribution systems (self­assembly, personalized adjustment, leasing, and borrowing). This research, coupled with the vision of designers and artists, is essential to understanding and imagining the way forward.

9Barefoot temple caretaker, Hampi, Karnataka, India, 2010. © Kristiaan D’Août

We learn from FFF how these traditional types of footwear actually represent a “new luxury”: hand­made, bespoke, eco­friendly, equitable. And how this essentialist approach can be translated into a contemporary context, using the latest 3D­scanning technology and 3D printing to create the perfect made­to­measure shoe with minimal material loss. This resonates with a renewed interest in Stewart Brand’s magazine Whole Earth Catalog, founded in 1968: it was the California bible for a minimalist, autarchic, ecologically sound lifestyle combining the tools and products of nomadic culture with new technology, with usefulness and easy accessibility as key re­quirements for inclusion.

Our feet are our primary means for standing on and moving about this earth. They anchor and propel us forward.4

4 Kristiaan D’Août further explores this idea in his text in this book.

Through modernization and industrialization, most of us have lost our immediate connection with our planet. Our feet have become encased in hard, tight shells, hobbling us and damaging our anatomy, while the production of such

Japanese architect Toshiko Mori bases each project on a principle she learned from Iroquois Native Americans: “They said that with every single decision you make, you should think of seven generations ahead.” She designed the Thread Cultural Centre in Sinthian, Senegal, as one undulating roof that gives shade, collects rainwater, and shelters the community and their activities. Pairing advanced parametric design with traditional bamboo frameworks and adobe walls, it was built by the local community.

The footwear­making skills in the three communities Willems investigated were built up and shared over generations. This is a common, free­flowing form of knowledge, not fixed, as the evolution of the Sami snow boot clearly shows, nor exclusive to a traditional lifestyle, as the daily use of kolhapuri sandals in India proves. However, it is at present not always a highly respected skill: many Indian cobblers, for example, don’t have a sense of the importance of their work. But this form of knowledge deserves wider recognition: if we are serious about degrowth—and we urgently need to be—we need inspi ration and education from such sources.

8

9Instructions written on a rock at the entrance to a temple complex, Hampi, Karanataka, India, 2010. © Kristiaan D’Août

footwear damages our planet. We need to reconnect with our feet, with the earth we move upon, with knowledge that is as ancient as it is timely, and to quite literally reduce our footprint, while continuing to move forward.

The shoes of the Ju|’hoansi, the Sami, and the people of Kolhapur follow the shape of our feet while protecting them, with minimal means, from their environment: a moulded scrap of eland leather, a reindeer­fur boot, a thin buffalo­leather sole. They move and breathe with our feet, perfectly serving their purpose, adapting through time to changing needs. Rooted in centuries­old traditions, they prove to be perfectly of our time, and a lesson to us all. A lesson FFF presents in this book, and extends towards the future.

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26 27| Kunta Bo, headman of Doupos, explaining how to make the n!ang n|osi sandal. Doupos, Namibia, 2018. © Thomas Nolf

Feet and How to Shoe Them

Catherine Willems

27Interview recorded and translated by Steve (!Ui Kunta), involved in the San-dal project since the beginning. Doupos, Namibia, 2018. © Thomas Nolf

How environments pre­design gait and footwear

“I used to wear sandals made out of eland [Daba, n!ang] skin [n|osi] to run behind eland, kudu, and warthogs. The sandal I used to wear when I was young is different from the one you are making now with the cobblers. For hunting a special type of sandals was used, named ||orkos. The sole was not flat but concave, touching the ground at two points and giving a better grip while running. You could catch the sand with those sandals, they were not slippery. When you come next time, bring along some eland skin or even kudu or wildebeest and I will show you how to make them.”

| Kunta Bo, interview January 2018, Doupos, Nyae Nyae Conservancy(Namibia)

Early in 2018 | Kunta Bo, a healer in Doupos, in Namibia’s Otjozondjupa region, spoke to me about the eland sandal, eland dances, and persistence hunting. He is one of the Ju|’hoansi living in the Nyae Nyae conservancy in northeast Namibia who used to practice persistence hunting. This is a rare and difficult

skill, combining tracking and endurance running to pursue an animal until it slows down or collapses from heat exhaustion, and then killing it with a poisoned arrow or wooden club. The San were among the last such hunters on the planet with a nomadic lifestyle. They moved around in the Kalahari desert, a large semi­arid sandy savannah in Southern Africa covering most of Botswana and parts of South Africa, Namibia, and Zimbabwe. They had to protect their feet from hot sand and thorns, and the hide of the eland, one of the largest antelope species, yields among the most durable and thickest of leathers. Until the 1950s everybody used eland sandals, as eland were plenty. But when eland skin became increasingly scarce toward the end of that decade, sandals begun to be made out of car tire. Only a few San still know how to make eland­skin sandals. | Kunta Bo is one of them.

If you walk in the village of Doupos, or Nhoma, or any other village in northeast Namibia, you are unlikely to see people wearing the n!ang n|osi, or eland sandal. If you do, you have probably run into one of the Ju|’hoan San cobblers who recently began to make their own sandals again, or a relative

28 29Getting ready for a photo shoot near Nhoma, Nyae Nyae, Namibia, 2018. © Thomas Nolf

of one. In 2015 a small group of Ju|’hoansi in Nyae Nyae began bringing back the indigenous sandal, in part to establish live­lihood oppor tunities. As hunter­gatherers, the population’s traditional economy was based on food sharing, immediate returns, and social equality. (Suzman 2017) But for a range of reasons this model is no longer viable, and anno 2018 only a small per­centage of food resources is obtained through hunting and gathering. Yet social and family ties remain strong, and the nature of relation ships between people is seen as the essence  of Ju|’hoansi culture (Marshall 2006).

In this time of broad change, Future Footwear Foundation (FFF) wondered if continued sandal production could not only provide livelihoods for these Ju|’hoansi cobblers and their communities but also opportunities for learning and for transforming Western ways of thinking about sustainable footwear production and distribution. The term “the commons” refers to an economic model in which collaboration, sharing, ecological concern, and human connections are guiding opera­tional principles. The commons predate capitalist markets and representative

governments, and is the oldest form of institutionalized, self­management activity in the world (Rifkin 2014). The use of common resources is agreed upon collectively and production is optimally adapted to local environments through centuries of co­evolution. The Ju|’hoansi can be seen as commoners avant la lettre. N!ore, the resource management system of the San, may go as far back as 25,000 years.¹

1 A comparable organizational structure, siida, was used by the Sami in northern Scandinavia, as dis-cussed below.

This book is an account of collaborations with cobblers around the world, focused on feet, footwear, its production, and its physical and social surroundings. The main focus is on the creation of footwear that does not constrict the feet, while offering adequate protection and desirable comfort and aesthetics, in ways that do not compromise the source and sink functions of our planet. As landfills choke with the remains of shoes made of non­biodegradable material and as both tangible and intangible cultural heritage is swept away or commoditized by market

29!Aice, one of the cobblers, walking in n!ang n|osi eland antelope sandals. Nyae Nyae, Namibia, 2018. © Thomas Nolf

more elaborate devices reflecting cultures, fashions, and behaviors. Throughout most of its history, footwear seems to have remained very basic, constructed in simple ways from plant fibers or leather, as in ancient Egypt and Rome. Daily use of constricting footwear with features such as a firm heel cup, arch support, cushioning, and motion control is recent: The incorporation of such elements in run­ning shoes, for example, has mostly occurred since the 1970s. This past decade has seen an increasing interest in barefoot running and various types of more or less “minimal” shoes, however—and research shows that indigenous shoes often fit the criteria for minimal foot­wear (Willems et al. 2017).

Let me briefly mention two historical examples of footwear with a predominantly cultural purpose that were not made to enhance an easy gait. Foot binding, also known as Chinese lotus shoes, dates back roughly a millennium. Small feet were consi­dered beautiful for women, and the ideal length of a shoe no more than 8 centimeters. From the age of six, the smaller toes of many girls were broken and bound with cloth daily, or every couple of days, to reshape the feet and prevent further growth. Although this

forces, these collaborations show how ancient and modern concepts and approaches can combine to create footwear for a healthy body and a healthy environment.

One of the features that all humans share is that they normally walk on two legs. This is known as upright walking or bipedal locomotion. It is unique among primates, and it defines humans and their direct ancestors. We tend to take upright walking for granted, but the evolution of humans into striding bipeds with a highly efficient gait took millions of years, and the use of footwear is a rela­tively recent phenomenon. Only very late in our evolution—long after we had become anatomically modern—did humans start to use footwear; archaeological evidence of shoes dates back to the middle Upper Paleolithic (ca. 30,000 years ago). Today most people, especially adults, wear some form of foot wear on a daily basis.

Looking at contemporary footwear, one might think there is a trade­off between form and function, whereby elegant footwear is not comfortable, and vice versa. Footwear has evolved from simple foot coverings—primarily for thermal protection in colder climates and mechanical protection in all environments—to

30 31Lotus shoe, Chinese shoe for bound feet. © Daniel Schwen

type of footwear meant women suffered, it often displayed their privileged position and association with a higher class (Ko Dorothy 2001). This extreme example shows that the human foot is a highly plastic structure.

A second example is the paduka, India’s oldest, best­known footwear—but not its most biomechanically functional nor its most widespread. Little more than a stiff sole with a toe­knob, positioned between the big and second toes, and two narrow curved stilts the paduka exists in a variety of forms and materials throughout India. They can be designed in the shape of either feet or fish, and are made of wood, ivory, and even silver (Jain-Neubauer 2000). In the past simple wooden versions were worn by working­class people, but padukas of fine teak, ebony, and sandalwood, inlaid with ivory or wire, revealed the wearer’s high social status. Today, they

are usually associated with the Indian sadhus and sadhvis, ascetic holy men and women, who wander from village to village and wear them to protect their feet from hot and dirty surfaces. The stilts reflect the principle of non­violence practiced by Hindu Brahmins, certain other castes, and Jains, in that they minimize the risk of accidentally trampling insects and vegetation. The ideal of ahimsa, or non­killing, also forbids such individuals from wearing leather footwear.

The lotus shoe is an extreme example of deforming footwear, while the paduka, with its stiff raised sole, reduces the mo­mentum between the body and the ground. Many contemporary shoes can be included in these categories. Unfortunately wearing shoes nowadays, even those meant to be comfortable, all too often means wearing restrictive shoes which are potentially In

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net waste production and energy use includes environmentally positive supply chains and logistics as well as design for reuse, disas sembly, material recovery, and other extensions of material and product lifetimes. This is an area in which we can learn from ancient traditions. The earliest shoes, from the middle Upper Paleolithic, protected our feet against cold, heat, and mechanical injury. Contemporary indigenous footwear often does exactly that too: Protecting our feet remains its main physiological and biomechanical function. It also mitigates negative physical and environmental effects because it is mostly made by hand as customized one­off products or in small batches, and does not usually feature elements that restrict natural shape and motion of the feet, such as a firm heel cup, arch support, or cushioning. The production of modern footwear in social­ly, environmentally, and biomechanically sustainable ways should thus be viewed in the context of the long co­evolution of environment, people, materials, and skills.

The recognition of constructive synergies between historical, biomechanical, and ecological reflections on footwear across different cobbler communities and production

instruments of deformation. The undeformed or natural outline of a foot outline is not symmetrical: The big toe extends from one to two inches beyond the fifth, smallest toe, and our five toes spread out, fanlike. They do not converge to a point in front, as one would expect from the shape of many shoes.

Besides shoes’ negative effects on feet, industrial production of footwear brings problems of mass consumption. The footwear industry utilizes a wide variety of materials and processes to produce a range of products, from sandals to more specialized footwear such as running shoes. Billions of shoes are consumed each year worldwide and when their functional life has expired most are sent to landfills—environmentally the worst way of dealing with waste. This stream of waste is not just a reflection of population growth but a side effect of fashion. Indeed, the world­wide per capita consumption of footwear has increased from one pair of shoes per year for every person in the world in 1950 to almost 2.6 pairs in 2005. This calls for innovation, a rethinking of fashion, and coming up with different environmental solutions.

The increasingly urgent quest for solutions that are sustainable in view of

32 33Lasts per size, mimicking a person’s footshape, used in the production of industrial footwear, Guangzhou, China, 2014. © David Willems

methods inspired my academic and artistic study “Future Footwear: The birth of feet & rebirth of footwear” (2015). From handicrafts in artisan communities and handmade shoes in small­scale factories to mass production in China and personalized production using new technologies, I looked at how tools, techniques, and materials in their environment affect the creation and use of objects, and what this means for long­term sustainability. One finding was that the production and use of indigenous footwear can guide and inform a cross­disciplinary approach to designing modern, sustainable, minimal footwear. Wearing indigenous footwear is often biomechanically similar to barefoot walking, and local handmade footwear is adapted to and sustainable for the environment (Willems et al., 2017). Another remarkable finding was that 3D printing resembles indigenous production in the ratio of excess waste to materials used and tools and manpower needed. This opens up new routes to personalized footwear production with minimal environmental and biomechanical impact.

Indigenous day­to­day footwear tend to be logical products conceived at the slowly changing cross section of physical environment

and climate, locally available materials and resources, and labor conditions and social organization. Seeing it this way—in terms of co­evolution—allows a shift from the separation of thinking and making that happens in response to rapidly changing external drivers (such as fashion) towards a more sustainable, holistic, engaged, and collaborative approach to creation in local conditions. In this “in­habitat position,” thinking and making proceed in tandem as, interacting formative processes (Ingold 2013 and Pinxten 2010). Design and making can then be examined from an internal, collective position, by seeing people among the materials of their craft.

2 I use the term “in-habitat position” as an intuition that, in the words of Rik Pinxten, “the external world or nature is the vast and encompassing network of which one is an integral part in such traditions.” He refers to oral traditions, such as those of hunter- gatherers, the Sami in Finland, and the Navajo in the Americas. In contrast, the “God’s eye view” is a Western intuition, resulting from an education that the world is a “set of things which is unified by the fact that all of it is outside of me and ‘hence’ can be looked upon as if from the outside” (Pinxten 2010). Pinxten, professor emeritus of anthropolo-gy and religious studies at Ghent University, was my supervisor and guided me over the years in the philosophical grounds of social scientific research.

33Leftovers of glues used in a Portuguese production unit, Porto, Portugal, 2015. © David Willems

Featuring the work of indigenous artisans in Finland, India, and Namibia, this book focuses on how traditional crafts­man ship combined with modern technology inspires alternatives for designing, producing, and distributing footwear that is sustainable in a broad sense.

The n!ang n|osi

The primary subject of this book is the sandal of the Ju|’hoansi, n!ang n|osi, used in southern parts of Africa and made out of eland skin. Worn by San people to protect their feet from hot sand and thorns, it features a back­strap and a double lace in between the big toe and other toes to keep the foot close to the sole. It is made purely out of eland skin, and has no heel cup, cushioning, or arch support. One eland easily yields ten to twelve pairs of sandals.

The desert sand has been there since long before the ancestors of the contemporary San occupied the Kalahari. Archeological evidence suggests around 40,000 years of occupation, and genetic data reveals that a common lineage goes back as far as 200,000 years. Archeological findings from Europe

Bringing together two seemingly extreme ways of producing footwear—handmade indigenous and machine­printed—may at first glance be surprising, but parallels in work flow, personalization, aversion of mass production, limited material footprint, and sustainability for feet and planet are striking and inspiring. Both approaches respect the unique shape of each foot and let the material move around it, almost like a second skin.

FFF was founded early in 2017 to continue this cross­disciplinary research and allow for a generalization of the under­lying concepts and a scaling up to global activities. It aims to stimulate progress in our understanding of human locomotion by integrating overlapping and intersecting themes—people (anthropology), planet (sustainable design and technology), and feet (biomechanics)—in multidisciplinary footwear projects. Fostering collaborations between artisans, students, and synergistic units in academia and private sectors around the world, FFF aspires to be an internationally recognized center of excellence for footwear design, research, and education, and a judi­ciously created and curated databank of bio­mechani cal data on barefoot and shod walking.

34 35The Kalahari Desert, a large semi-arid sandy savanna in Southern Africa. Nyae Nyae, Namibia, 2018. © Thomas Nolf

date the starting point for footwear use to some 30,000 years ago (Trinkaus 2005), but in the southern parts of Africa during that same period the question of footwear use remains archeologically open. The earliest evidence of San wearing sandals is found in the 2000­year­old rock art of Brandberg.³

3 Heinrich Barth Institute, AAArC – African Archaeology Archive Cologne, University of Cologne.

Environmental conditions and the need for protection has changed over time. At the end of the last glacial maximum, some 15,000 years ago, the Kalahari—the savannah—was probably wetter and about 5°c cooler than today. Long­distance running to hunt animals over hot sand, as the temperature and dryness increased, likely made sandals a necessary tool for survival.

It is not known when the sandal came into use in the region, but interviews and literature show that most people used eland sandals until the 1950s. In those days, when the San had a more nomadic life, they were worn from the age of five onwards. Men and women both used the same type of sandal, and the basic design was always the same

—the eventual shape of the sole was deter­mined by the user’s activity. The eland­skin sandal was gradually replaced by a car­tire version in the twentieth century. The antelope is afraid of people but not of horses, and this combined with trophy hunt ing and meat commercialization meant the population of eland has decreased since the 1950s (Marshal, E. 2006); now trophy hunters are given permission to kill a small number yearly. The Ju|’hoansi are only permitted to hunt in the traditional way—through persistence hunting—in Nyae Nyae conservancy, al though hunting with a rifle or spear on horse back would naturally be more efficient.

With the objective of bringing back the indigenous sandal, to inspire local business and sustainable design, UK­based company Vivobarefoot launched a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign4 called “The Original San­dal.”

4 www.kickstarter.com/projects/vivobarefoot/the- original-san-dal. In 2016, 633 backers pledged

GBP92,000 to help bring this project to life.

In collaboration with a non­governmental organization, volunteers (for local logistics),

35N!ang n|osi, featuring a back strap, a double lace between the toes, and a two-layer sole. Nyae Nyae, Namibia, 2018. © Thomas Nolf

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and FFF (for overall vision and skill­related issues), more than 1000 pairs of sandals were made. Donors pledged funds and received in return a pair of sandals in their size. Sandal production used to be directly linked to consumption: Local cobblers took exact measurements by tracing each foot’s shape on tanned eland skin, and then created a unique pair. This system fit with the immediate­return systems of hunter­gatherer communities, whereby people obtain a direct return from their labor straight away; delayed reimbursement and large quantities of products thus conflict with such traditional egalitarian societies. But crowdfunding is more in line with the traditional way of supporting sandal production. Orders are given in small batches of 100 pairs, and each pair is made for a specific person. No overstock is created and there are no marginal costs, so a single pair costs as much as each pair in a batch.5

5 This has interesting parallels with 3D-printing, where scanning allows for a 100 percent personalized sandal, as will be discussed later.

The actual place of production becomes less important. Only a small amount of mobile

equipment is needed, and a de­centralized economy is thus possible. By 2018 the Kickstarter order had been fulfilled and the cobblers started to produce for the local and global market, organizing their own logistics and preparing to build a semi­permanent cobbling atelier.

The effort to bring back the indigenous San­dal raises an ethical question. If someone in Tsumkwe or Nhoma or any other village in the Nyae Nyae conservancy is dressed in skins, with bow and arrow ready for a persistence hunt, they are almost certainly performing a re­enactment of traditional activities. Can the recreation of the San­dal also be perceived as an artificial continuation of the “old way,” which tourists like to see? Does the San­dal project enhance a myth and help enclose hunter­gatherer culture in a museum­like frame? Here we recognize that the sandal is above all a very useful shoe in the Ju|’hoansi’s environment. It is worn not only with traditional clothes, or when performing. It is worn more in combination with shorts or jeans, just as the Sami in northern Europe wear indigenous reindeer boots, nuvvtohat, with contemporary outfits. Traditional footwear continues to serve local people.

37River near Lake Inari, Finland, 2011. © Kristiaan D’Août

boot­making; the legs of one reindeer yields a single pair. Inside the boot, kinkaheina (dried grass) is traditionally used instead of socks because of its insulating properties. Low weight is an important feature: com­bined with the thermal protection of the hide and grass, this makes the reindeer boot one of the lightest, warmest types of winter footwear available.

Living in northern parts of Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Russia’s Kola Peninsula, the Sami are the only indigenous people in the European Union to have their own language, culture, and means of livelihood, and this includes reindeer husbandry. They mainly wear the nuvttohat (in North Sami language) or nutukkaat (Finnish) in winter, when the temperature is below ­10°c.

As with other traditional Sami handi­craft, referred to as duodji, men and women

Nuvttohat footwear

The second type of indigenous footwear featured here is the Northern Scandinavian nuvttohat or reindeer­fur boot. Used in an extremely cold climate, it is made entirely from vegetable­tanned reindeer hide, provides the ultimate protection from the local envi ron ment, and does not interfere with the natural anatomy of human feet. Walking in snow demands a specific way of moving, a specific gait; the reindeer boots allow this by largely mimicking a barefoot gait, so can be considered minimal footwear. Woven laces keep snow out, and they are laced in patterns that refer to the different Sami communities, the wearer’s gender, and the boot’s intended use—for ceremonies or for daily work, for instance. When reindeer are slaughtered for their meat, the skin of their legs is used for R

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38 39Reindeer husbandry, part of the Sami cultural heritage. Inari region, Finland, 2011. © Kristiaan D’Août

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used to be responsible for different parts of the process, with the former managing, cultivating, and breeding the reindeer in the field and the latter crafting the boots from the soft fur and skin. The boot once had a lifted nose that functioned to attach to skis, but this is disappearing because reindeer­herding people have adapted the design to the snowmobile. In snow people prefer to walk on fur outsoles because they provide thermal comfort and an anti­slip texture, but on a snowmobile the boot is protected with an overshoe for better grip and to prevent the hairs from shedding. The lifted nose is omitted so the boot can fit into the overshoe. Is this modified boot still nuvttohat and therefore part of Sami heritage?

The indigenous fur boot is a cultural expression handed down from person to person, generation to generation, and has

constantly evolved within Sami communities. The boot cannot be attributed to an indivi­dual author or group of authors. Nor is there any one design. The Sami design shoes for specific local conditions and needs which vary within communities. As well as boots, items of clothing like coats and leggings made from the same material are equally part of the Sami indigenous clothing tradition. Each community has its own design of fur shoes for their specific conditions and needs. Beyond the Sami, people all around the circumpolar North have used skin boots and clothing of this general kind, sometimes with different style details and stitching. Reindeer boots that include elements from other areas, such as a thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) and/or natural rubber outsole, illustrate the decontextualization involved in adapt ing them to different terrains. R

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knowledge and skills are retransmitted through its courses, and it has become part of a self­determination process. Meanwhile, many Sami organizations now include Sami from Sweden, Norway, Finland, and, for some purposes, Russia. Since 1982, Sami peoples share the copyright and use of the duodji trade mark to protect items and handicrafts of genuine Sami origin. To obtain the trademark, one must be Sami and be registered to the duodji organization. Beyond the trademark, many Sami artists find markets for their cultural expressions in galleries and other market venues.

A rule of collective right, individual autonomy, and equality used to be in effect in Sami communities. This ancient system, known as siida, consists of a reindeer forag­ing area, a group of reindeer herders, and a corporation for the economic benefit of its members. Similar to the San n!ori described above, siida was built on shared customs and principles for how indi vidual interests are negotiated and reconciled with the com­munity’s interests. Cultural heritage can be preserved over time through local auto­nomy and informal organization based on these shared ideals. In addition to specific

In accordance with this dynamic process, the 2003 UNESCO Convention states that indigenous cultural heritage is constantly recreated by communities and groups in response to their environment, interaction with nature, and history. As the example of the Sami shows, “recreating” in this sense should mean being open to change—that is, to learning and implementing new things. Safeguarding would then apply to the quality and functionality of changing objects, rather than to the objects themselves or to property or user’s rights. Exclusive thinking and focus on “identity” does not guarantee a respect for diversity: Categorical restrictions could weaken indigenous cultural heritage, possibly isolating a group and making its material things into museum objects.

In the late 1970s an education institute called Sogsakk was established in the northern Finnish town of Inari to keep alive Sami ways of life. Founded and supported by the Finnish government, it forms an official educational space for indigenous people in a national context. Sogsakk’s mission is to preserve and develop traditional Sami cultures, language, and livelihoods, including crafts. Traditional

42 43Reindeer gathering near Inari, Finland, 2011. © Kristiaan D’Août

objects, this interface of individual and collective should be better protected as cultural inheritance.

Kolhapuri footwear

The South Indian kolhapuri footwear likewise seems to alter foot biomechanics only subtly. A sandal that fits tightly onto the foot through an instep strap, it has a thin sole made of vegetable­tanned buffalo leather, typically with a very thin heel offset consisting of an extra layer of the same leather.

The paduka might be the type of Indian footwear that’s most familiar to the Western world, but it is not India’s most common footwear. Even in ancient times, the most­worn footwear was a strapped sandal of the type that Mahatma Gandhi made—best known as the kolhapuri chappal. Although

trends of high­heeled shoes and wedges exist in India, this flat leather sandal is still used throughout the country. Kolhapur is a city, but the geographical area of production is wider: The sandal originates from the states of Karnataka and Maharashtra. For example, the kolhapuri artisans at Toehold, a not­for­profit organization in Athani, Karnataka, promoting rural women’s empowerment with an emphasis on social accountability, are noted for their skill.

Characteristic of the Kolhapuri chappal is the initial stiffness of the outsole. The parts touching the ground become more supple while the rest of the sole retains its stiffness, together ensuring mobility and the protection of the foot on rocky clayish terrain. The summer months in the region are extremely hot, with temperatures reaching up to 40 °C. Just like the eland sandal and Fu

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hides. In these particular communities, buffaloes are not slaughtered for meat consumption—only when a buffalo dies of natural causes is its leather used for footwear and other products. Tanning is traditionally done by the Hindu tanner community, which is geographically situated in the same neighborhood as the cobblers and is interdependent on them. The vegetable bag­tanning of buffalo leather is a special process. In general, there are many types of leather, and even coming from the same animal, no two parts of hide are the same. This is especially true for bag­tanning 6—depending on the tanner’s level of engagement with it, the hide will be suppler or stiffer.

6 Bag-tanning is a rural vegetable tanning process. After raw hides have been cleaned of blood and dirt, they are put in a bath containing a lime solu-tion. The hides become plump and swollen, and after ten days they are ready for dehairing with a knife. The tanning of both flesh and skin sides is done by bathing in a solution of babul bark, my-robalan nut, and water. To tan the hide’s middle layers, it is stitched up with strong sisal fibre into a cylindrical bag with a narrow opening at the neck. These hide bags are filled with the same mixture, and suspended from a wooden beam. The whole process, from raw hide to tanned leather, takes about thirty-five days (Willems 2013).

the reindeer boot, this sandal proves to be the best footwear with regards to local conditions and available materials, giving protection against heat and humidity.

The country’s small­scale footwear industry traditionally employs the traditional Hindu cobbler caste, known as chamars. Individual shoemakers and shoemaking families continue to supply footwear to local communities and their own families, as well as for export purposes. Most artisans work in family­based establishments, transferring skills and knowledge from one generation to the next. Men are skilled at making the soles, while women make the uppers and do the hand­stitching. Often, artisans work in front of their houses, sitting on the ground next to a display of their tools and leathers. The origin of kolhapuri chappals can be traced back to the twelfth­century rule of King Bijjala II of Bidar and his Prime Minister Basaveswara, who wanted to create a caste less society and remove the stigma associated with the chamar community (Mahadevi M 1980).

Water buffaloes, which are used for dairy production throughout India and other parts of Asia, provide tough, useful

44 45Dehairing a buffalo hide in a small tannery in Athani, India, 2009. © Shiva Kumar

They know what happens if they treat the hide in different ways. When human intervention stops, the hide still grows and changes due to weather, light, and being worn or unworn.

One buffalo yields around fifteen pairs of sandals. In the stages of the making process and in the use of buffalo hide, different parts of the animal are employed for different purposes: the tail is used as thread for hand­stitching, and the horns for polishing the leather. The left over hide is used in between the layers of the heel parts, while smaller pieces are sold to farmers to use in fertilizer. The artisans make maximum use of the materials and any wastage is recycled, which speaks of intrinsic environmental consciousness. Because the footwear is handmade without using harmful adhesives, mass production is not possible.

Since the twelfth century, various reformers in India (including, in the early

twentieth century, both Gandhi and jurist Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar) have tried to bring greater dignity to chamars and other untouchable castes. In making foot wear, Gandhi demonstrated a profound under­standing of the value of the leather craft. By learning the skills of one of the lowest castes of laborers, the chamars, and by dealing with a ritually polluting material, Gandhi became a role model for egalitarianism and self­reliance, which he hoped would influence future Indian societies. These artisans largely still do not become shoemakers by choice, however, but through lack of choice. Almost all shoe­makers practice their profession in order to make a living, but they want a different future for their children. Although it is a household industry that allows for a certain degree of freedom, they do not value their profession highly.D

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be preserved only in documents and visual records. The same is true of the artisans making the footwear. If there are openings in other jobs or in higher education, they will not hesitate to switch careers. Still, the way this footwear is made offers a different perspective on design, and this footwear can be considered a luxury accessory avant la lettre for four reasons: 1) the material is treated in a clearly respectful way; 2) neither the tanning nor the making put undue pressure on the environment; 3) the products also have an afterlife; and 4) the footwear respects human anatomy. In the end, material, soil, climate, and feet are all in balance.

Old knowledge informs new technology: Do you want to have your feet back?

Good proprioception—the sense of oneself as a physical organism in the environment—

Artisans as well as India’s Central Leather Research Institute (CLRI) expect bag­tanning to disappear by the next gener­ation, for multiple reasons. Primarily, arti­sans are shifting to other professions due to the high cost of tanning materials and raw hides, as birth and survival rates among the buffaloes have fallen over the years. Further, tanners have other job opportunities due to government policies encouraging higher education and giving preferential access to jobs to lower­caste people (“scheduled castes”) according to a quota system.

It is highly likely that the use of bag­tanned leather will disappear in the cases mentioned here within the next ten years, and that it will be replaced by pressed and other leathers. Local tanning activities will cease, tanners will move into other jobs, and the knowledge connected to their artisanship will A

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46 47Kolhapuri footwear and the typical outsole with kanwali (ears) on the sides. Athani, India, 2010. © Kristiaan D’Août

enables the body to adjust to different positions and surfaces, and to control balance and stability. Footwear is part of an unbroken proprioceptive loop that runs from the brain, through the feet, and into the surface being walked upon, and then back again, allowing individuals to monitor and adapt the pattern of their gait. With a minimum of material to protect against injury, the three examples of indigenous footwear described here offer maximum proprioception. They have also inspired another type of footwear: the Future Footwear Foundation’s 100 percent personalized 3D­printed shoes.

The designs I developed for FFF are based on indigenous footwear features that influence the biomechanics of walking and environmental sustainability. The challenge was to retain these biomechanical and environmental benefits in designs for modern city wear. In all cases, as in “in­habitat” production, form follows material, function, and production method, not the other way around, and intervention in form­related aspects is minimal. One example is the marking on the printed outsole that visually and functionally mimics the buffalo thread used to sew leather insole and outsole

together, which offers abrasion resistance. Another example is the connectors between sole and upper that are based on those of the traditional Indian buffalo bantu chappal and re­created for 3D­printed use. FFF also performed tests to understand which physical properties of hides and furs—for instance, thickness, stiffness, water permeability and intrusion, resistance to surface wear, and thermal insulation—makes indigenous footwear so effective on specific local substrates (Ghent University, 2013), and then used this knowledge to design printed soles for use on surfaces found in other environments, such as cities.

FFF promotes working with thin, lightweight materials to enhance the barefoot feeling and proprioception; they are also breathable, non­toxic, and sourced close to the production unit. While indigenous production is subtractive in the sense that raw materials are cut from larger pieces and then reassembled to manufacture the final object, 3D printing is an additive process, using just enough material to create a fully formed object layer­by­layer. According to Rifkin (2014), 3D printing uses approximately one tenth of the material used in subtracting

47Bag-tanning unit in Rajasthan, India, 2013. © David Willems

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manufacturing; although in the indigenous production methods described here waste is minimized through recycling or using subtracted materials as fertilizer, near­zero waste, as in 3D printing, is not achieved. Yet as long as synthetic materials are used, recycling the end products of 3D printing remains a challenge.

Both indigenous manufacturing and 3D scanning and printing production here are directly linked to consumption, and little is needed in the way of storage for stock. The indigenous cobbler takes foot measurements before creating a unique pair. Similarly, scanning forms the basis for each personalized 3D­printed sandal. After a person’s feet are scanned, their sandals are made like a second skin with selective laser sintering (SLS), an additive manufacturing technique using a laser as the power source to sinter materials into a desired model. The ability to integrate pipings and meshings, thus enhancing flexibility, breathability, and vapor transmission, is one advantage of SLS over other 3D­printing techniques. The material the FFF uses at this point is thermoplastic Polyurithane—TPU 92A­1—a very fine off­white granular powder, which has high

durability. The FFF is currently studying the effects of TPU material on the body and the environment, as well as the use of organic and biodegradable materials.

Low­cost home printers could in principle make it possible to create custo­mized single products or small batches to order and at minimal cost everywhere, but with current technology they do not yet achieve sufficient quality. The equipment needed for SLS is larger and more expensive than home printers. The growing number of fabrication laboratories and printing hubs with state­of­the­art equipment, along with open­source software, may provide local solutions for increased global demand over time.

Comparing the attributes and production processes of indigenous models and these new prototypes allowed the FFF to recognize and isolate common elements. At the same time FFF recognizes and appre­ciates that a slow localized production pro­cess demands different infrastructures and a high degree of collaboration. This aspect of sustainable production is reminiscent of recent scholarship on the commons and contrasts with the globalized mass production of more goods with less labor and at a lower

49Painting the horns of buffaloes is also used by farmers to identify their cattle. Ranthambore, India, 2013. © David Willems

and respectful interaction—are the key factors for making this design collaboration a success. Ultimately the foundation seeks be part of two positive stories: helping bring back a more natural healthy movement and gait, and safeguarding the skills of local artisans amid increasing globalization.

cost. Cross­fertilization between indigenous crafts and high­tech open­source 3D­printing technology opens exciting new perspectives for footwear design and production.

In the three communities discussed here, the shoe­making material—eland, buffalo, or reindeer hide—is a vehicle for a balanced interaction in which collabora­tion, sharing, ecological concern, and human connections become more and more important. FFF aims for long­term engage­ment avoiding the “hit­and­run” strategy of gathering knowledge as an outsider and using it for academic or economic purposes without involving the community in question or paying attention to its views, needs, and interests. FFF proposes a way of working that requires close interaction and the build­up of shared understanding and trust, acquiring knowledge through practical experience in context. This is not possible without the permission, co­operation, and substantive decision­making involvement of communities and practitioners. The ability to adjust to a changing environ ment is inherent to all cultures and ways of life. A respectful use of indigenous cultural expressions—through transparency, willingness to collaborate,

50 51Kolhapuri sandal in buffalo leather, Toehold Artisans, Athani, India, 2014. © David Willems

ReferencesGhent University, Department of Textiles (2013) Physical tests on kolhapuri (buffalo chappals) and nuttukaat (reindeer boots). Ghent: Ghent Universi-ty. Bachelor thesis, fashion technology, supervised by Carla Hertleer and Catherine Willems.

Ingold, Tim (2013) Making: Anthropology, Archae-ology, Art and Architecture. London: Routledge.

Jain-Neubauer, Jutta (2000) Feet & Footwear in In-dian culture. Ahmedabad: Mapin Publishing.

Ko, Dorothy (2001) Every Step a Lotus: Shoes for Bound Feet. Oakland, California: University of Cal-ifornia Press.

Mahadevi, M. (1980) Vishwa Guru Basavanna. Ban-galore: Vishwa Kalyana Mission.

Marshall, Elizabeth Thomas (2006) The Old Way: A Story of the First People. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux.

Pinxten, Rik (2010) The Creation of God. Lang: Frankfurt.

Rifkin, Jeremy (2014) The Zero Marginal Cost Soci-ety: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Com-mons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Suzman, James, (2017) Affluence without Abun-dance. The disappearing world of the Bushmen, New York: Bloomsburry.

Trinkaus, E. (2005) Anatomical evidence for the an-tiquity of human footwear use. In Journal of Archae-ological Science 32:1515–1526.

Willems, Catherine, Gaetane Stassijns, Wim Cornelis, and Kristiaan D’Août (2017) Biome-chanical implications of walking with indigenous footwear. In American Journal of Physical Anthro-pology 162(4).

Willems, Catherine (2013) 100% bag-tanned: Ac-tion research generating new insights on design processes. In Critical Arts, volume 27:474–489.S

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51Bantu knotted model in buffalo leather, Toehold Artisans, Athani, India, 2014. © David Willems

Willems, Catherine (2015) The birth of feet. The re-birth of footwear. PhD in the Arts, KASK / School of Arts, Ghent.

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70 71Healthy natural feet with a straight big toe, a dynamic & strong arch and a wide toe box. © VIVOBAREFOOT Ltd.

How Humans Walk and Why Footwear Matters

Kristiaan D’Août

71Example showing the temporal roll-off in a barefoot walking South Indian male, 2015. © PhD Catherine Willems

to pinpoint exactly when it first arose. The fossil record is scattered: the older a fossil, the less complete and intact it tends to be, and therefore the harder it becomes to link behavioral traits such as gait to bony features. The oldest fossils to be termed hominin, and thus bipedal, date back to the species Sahelanthropus tchadensis at about 7 million years ago (MYA) and Orrorin tugenensis at about 6 MYA. With both, however, the question of how they relate to later hominins and thus to ourselves is controversial. The former, in particular, may not be hominin but closely related to chimpanzees and gorillas. It is impossible to tell, for now, exactly how these early species moved about.

Later species are certainly hominins and habitual bipeds. These include the genus Ardipithecus (with the oldest fossil

Humans are unique animals for many reasons. Our cognitive skills and our cultural diversity are very complex, quite unique properties—but they are also present, to some degree, in other animals, especially marine mammals and primates. The single feature that truly sets us apart from the hundreds of other primate species lies in our gait: we are the only primate that has made upright walking our normal way of moving about. We are the only habitual bipeds. Why is this so important? The answer is that it isn’t, really, to most other animals. Cheetahs are successful runners on all fours, and insects benefit from having six limbs. But we consider habitual bipedalism the hallmark of our group, the hominins—modern humans and their closest ancestors—because habitual bipedalism has led to a vast array of anatomical adaptations and ultimately to extremely large brains. It has made us human.

Here, we will briefly explore when bipedalism emerged, how it subsequently became efficient, and how we walk and run as modern humans. It is clear that the foot plays a crucial role. And with the foot, eventually, footwear.

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of A. kaddaba at 5.6 MYA), the Australo­pi thecines (4 MYA), and our own genus, Homo, with the oldest representatives H. habilis at 2.8 MYA. We know that these hominins were habitually bipedal because they have clear anatomical adaptations for it, and in some cases because we have fossils tracks. The oldest, best known tracks are those from Laetoli in Tanzania, made by Australopithecines 3.7 MYA and containing long sequences of footprints but no handprints. While these species predating Homo sapiens were bipeds, their gait was almost certainly distinct from our own because they had different anatomies and body sizes, and may have still spent a considerable amount of time in the trees.

Humans (Homo sapiens) have been anatomically modern for about 100,000 years, with bodies highly specialized for upright walking and thus a fully modern gait. And unlike in fossil species, where scientists are limited to inferring function from fossils and footprints, often using analogies with other species or mathematical modeling, modern humans can be studied in the lab. The funda mental characteristics of our gait can be understood rather well.

One main characteristic of human bipedal walking is its efficiency compared to non­habitual bipedal walking, for example, and quadrupedal walking (that is, on all fours) in our closest relatives, the bonobos and chimpanzees. While a whole swathe of anatomical details is linked to upright walking, its efficiency can be understood through the use of relatively simple whole­body mechanics in which we represent the body by its center of mass. When we walk, our center of mass does not move in a straight line, but fluctuates upwards and downwards—as is easily observed when we walk next to a fence at eye level. When we are on one leg, in mid­stance, it is at its highest position; when both feet are on the ground, it is at its lowest position. Mechanically, our bodies have more potential (“height”) energy in mid­stance and more kinetic (“motion”) energy during the double support phase, when both feet are on the ground. The two energies have an inverse relationship: when one is high the other is low, and vice versa. Yet they can be exchanged to some extent, saving humans approximately 70 percent of walking energy. Because this system resembles a pendulum, which almost perfectly exchanges both types

73Example of the pressure plate set-up in Athani, India. South Indian woman walking barefoot, 2010. © Kristiaan D’Août

mobile trunk, allowing our upper body to rotate opposite to our lower body during gait, thus counterbalancing torques. Our hips have acquired a shape that, along with the double S­shape of our vertebral column, allows us to keep our trunk fully upright and our hip and knee joints almost vertically aligned, reducing torques and accordingly muscle work. Although we have wide hips, our knees are close together near the midline, also reducing the muscular work needed to prevent us from wobbling sideways.

The fact that the foot too contains some of the major anatomical adaptations for habitual bipedalism is not surprising, since our feet are the only mechanical contact points with the environment during walking and running. Our feet are as important to us as tires are to Formula One drivers, and selective pressures on the foot are constantly very high.

of energy, but upside­down, it is called the “inverted pendulum” mechanism.

Other primates, including apes, do not use this mechanism. During running rather than walking, humans also do not use the inverted pendulum mechanism but a very different mechanism called “spring­mass.” This means that the two forms of mechanical energy—potential and kinetic—move in phase as in a bouncing ball, allowing us to go faster than when walking, but at a higher energy cost.

Anatomically, the human body displays many adaptations for habitual bipedalism, from head to toe. The foramen magnum, the opening in our skull where the spine enters our brain, is located centrally at the skull’s base. This means our head is well balanced when upright, and minimal effort is usually required by our neck muscles. We have a very M

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74 75The stiffness of the buffalo outsole calculated by measuring the bending force (in newtons), 2010. Athni, India. © Kristiaan D’Août

Every foot contains twenty­six bones and even higher numbers of muscles and ligaments. Because the bones all move with respect to each other, the foot is one of the most complex and least understood structures in the human body. Much of this complexity originates from the evolutionary process that started with multi­rayed fish fins and eventually led to the foot, and is therefore not functionally necessary. It is the task of foot biomechanists to find out which foot features are essential. This will help us understand how the healthy foot works, but also how to build better prostheses and, crucially, to determine which foot wear allows the foot to function normally and which does not.

We do not strictly need a foot to walk or run (we can walk on pointy stilts,

for example), but the foot is very helpful in securing a solid and safe ground contact, which is especially important during the ini­tial contact phase and during push­off, when ground reaction forces are high and include horizontal components which might trip us up if the friction between foot and substrate is too small. The requirements during these two phases are very different. During initial contact, the foot needs to deal with the impact and accommodate to the substrate, which can be uneven and compliant; this requires a somewhat flexible foot. During push­off, the foot must enable efficient propulsion, which requires more rigidity. Combining these two seemingly conflicting tasks explains why the foot must show some level of anato­mical and functional complexity. After initial contact, which typically occurs slightly on the outside edge of the heel during walking, our foot “unrolls.” This means that its center of pressure moves forwards, initially in an almost straight line and then from the ball of the foot towards the big toe or second toe.

It should be emphasized at this point that the human foot is very variable, in terms of both anatomy and motion. Biological variability is normal, but some variation can be caused V

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1 Pronation involves dorsiflexion, eversion, and abduc-tion, meaning that the ankle rolls towards the center and the arch turns toward the ground; in extreme cases this means flat feet. During supination, a com-bination of plantarflexion, inversion, and adduction happens: the ankle rolls away from the center and the arch of the foot lifts. High arches and O-shaped legs can be understood by researching this motion.

The foot pronates immediately after heel strike, but this motion is actively slowed down by acti vity of the posterior tibialis muscle, further helping manage impact.

During mid­stance and push­off, the foot maintains a more rigid structure, albeit not fully so. This rigidity is greatly enabled by the presence of foot arches. The medial longitudinal arch is the most visible, and varies substantially between people, ranging from flat to high­arched. In addition to the medial longitudinal arch, the foot possesses a lateral longitudinal arch and transverse arches at the midfoot and forefoot.

The arches of the foot maintain their shape because of their bony structure, the ligaments connecting these bones, muscular activity, and, in the case of the longitudinal arch, the plantar aponeurosis—a long ligament

by pathology or improper footwear, and this can lead to reduced performance and health.

Some key features of the human foot have not developed in other, non­bipedal, primates, or they have developed but not as well. Humans have a very solid rearfoot with a large, strong heel bone (calcaneus). This has a long backward oriented extension, the tuber calcanei, which provides a long lever for the calf muscles which attach via the Achilles tendon. On the lower (plantar) part of the heel is a fat pad which functions as a cushioning device during impact. Combined, heel bone and fat pad make for a rounded structure. This means that, in whatever way the heel strikes the ground, the forces acting on it will run close to the midline and to the subtalar joint axis. The subtalar joint is positioned between heel bone and talus bone, which itself sits between heel bone and lower leg. It is an important joint with an oblique axis of rotation, which means eversion of the heel (rotation around a horizontal axis) is accompanied by outward rotation of the foot around a vertical axis (abduction) and by a smaller enclosed angle between foot and lower leg (dorsiflexion). This combined motion is called pronation and its opposite, supination.1

76 77Pressure plate set-up in Inari, Finland. Finnish woman walking with her indigenous nuvvtohat footwear, 2011. © Kristiaan D’Août

that runs from the heel bone around the base of the toes, attaching to them via separate slips. This arrangement means it tightens at the end of stance, when the foot rotates while the toes remain fully on the substrate. This is called the windlass effect, because it is like that of a ship’s windlass, which tightens a rope by pulling it around a rotating drum.

The anatomical and functional features of the foot discussed here are the result of mil­lions of years of evolution leading to a highly functional structure with a good perfor mance record. It is only well after our feet gained these features that humans invented footwear, perhaps some 40,000 years ago. So from a biomechanical perspective, it is clear that we do not need shoes.

This does not mean, of course, that shoes cannot be useful and assist an already fully functional foot in specific conditions.

Footwear can help protect against cold, heat, and mechanical injury. The archaeological record strongly suggests that the earliest shoes did exactly that, and from that point onward protecting our feet remained shoes’ main physiological and biomechanical function. For example, ancient Egyptian and Roman shoes, excluding those used by warriors, were protective but simple, and unlikely to interfere with the foot’s biological function as described above. The caligae worn by lower­ranked Roman cavalrymen and foot soldiers, and possibly by some centurions, were heavy­duty boots with thick, hobnailed soles, but in general, footwear was just a skin or layer of hides wrapped around the foot.

This is in stark contrast with the con­ven tional Western shoes of today, which have fea tures such as a last narrower than a human foot, a raised heel, arch support, a firm heel W

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similar in function to the archaeological shoes described above. Examples of less invasive footwear exist all over the world and include the kolhapuri from India, the nuvttohat from northern Scandinavia, and the n!ang n|osi from Namibia. Even though these shoes originate in different cultures and climates, they share essential features: they do not (or barely) constrain the foot, they have no raised heel, no arch support, and a thin flexible sole. These shoes have all remained fundamentally unaltered for centuries and are used for inten sive activities including long­distance walking. Our working hypothesis, therefore, is that these shoes are biomechanically very well suited, though not necessarily perfectly so, for the activities their wearers undertake in their environment —a hypothesis supported by some mostly anecdotal evidence. These shoes can be

cup, and a rigid sole—elements which inter­ere with how a foot functions and amount to what can be called non­minimal footwear. We have become used to believing that these features are bene ficial or even essential in a shoe, even though some of them find their origins in establishing social status, such as the high heel. Indeed, high­ heeled footwear is associated with common con ditions such as bunions and flat feet. Foot wear can of course also provide benefits, and research should make clear which shoes do that without impairing healthy foot function.

Not all shoes are like conventional Western shoes. When taking a broad anthro­pological perspective, it becomes clear that a wide variety of indigenous shoes exists. Historically, these have ranged from highly invasive shoes, such as the Chinese lotus shoe, to biomechanically simple ones,

78 79Example of the pressure plate set-up in Athani, India. South Indian woman walking barefoot, 2010. © Kristiaan D’Août

considered equivalent to what are often labeled “minimal shoes” in Western shoe shops.

Science must address to what extent walking in “minimal” shoes resembles barefoot walking, and what the long­term health bene­fits of barefoot walking are. Current research suggests that walking in minimal footwear is much closer to barefoot walking than walking in conventional western shoes, but that it is not identical. It also suggests that constrictive footwear actually narrows feet. Long­term health benefits are difficult to assess, but observations on habitual barefoot­walking people strongly suggests that their feet suffer far fewer medical problems, such as bunions, which are very widespread in the West.

This book focuses on indigenous foot­wear, specifically on the three types mentioned above: the traditional n!ang n|osi hunting sandals made and worn by the Ju|’hoansi

in designers a different view. One example is the 3D­printed shoe inspired in aesthetics as well as in its bio mechanical and physical properties by its indigenous counterpart. The two types of footwear share an approach to use of materials and time, and a focus on the individual. In the new version, a made­to­measure shoe is printed in 3D­printed material based on a scan of the person’s feet, and then wrapped around the foot offering protection like a second skin.

Future Footwear Foundation thus positions itself between the future and the past, using the resulting transient and inter active back­and­forth movement as a source of inspiration and creativity. Footwear design isn’t the only focus here: To achieve a sustainable economy for all we must further explore hybrid economies that combine conventional ko

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marketplaces with collaborative approaches to new technologies, materials, and differing worldviews. One group offering a different view on walking and producing is the Ju|’hoansi. Originally mobile hunter­gatherers, today virtually all Ju|’hoansi live settled lives and have diversified economic systems—yet sharing is still a crucial part of their social system. Their ways of walking, living together, and creating footwear should be carefully considered today in view of increased foot­wear waste and landfill, shortages in natural resources, and declining biomechanical health. The following chapters offer a deeper view into the Ju|’hoan San of Nyae Nyae in Namibia.

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84Family lineage of the cobblers currently involved.

The texts in this chapter are based on inter­views taken during fieldwork in 2017 and 2018 by Catherine Willems, Flora Blommaert, and Els Roelandt at different locations near Nhoma and Tsumkwe (Namibia). For enhanced readability a family lineage and map of the n!oresi—the territories—where the cobblers work and live is included below.

Interviews with Ju|’hoan Cobblers

Komtsa Kashe(Ruben)

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!Ui David

Josef Kunta×

Di||xao (Maria)

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N||ao Josef (Katura)

!Ui Kunta (Steve)×

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N!haukxa (†) × Kunta (†) Di||Xao × N‡amce (†)

|Kun N‡amce (†)(Jonas)

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N!ani N‡amce(Pieter)

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The cobblers of the n!ang n|osi ¹Between 2015 and the present moment, sandal pro-duction has moved from Nhoma to ||Xa|oba and back to Nhoma via Tsumkwe, with a final plan to settle down in Nhoma in 2019. A new modular atelier will be built in co-creation with artisans and villagers. Seen against the Ju|’hoan San background of hunter-gathering, these movements are not considered divergent. The option to stay in smaller settlements rather than the main city, Tsumkwe, is in line with the “back-to-the-land” movement that started as early as the 1980s to avoid the town’s neg-ative reputation and influence. Robert Hitchcock explains the situation in more detail in his chapter in this book.

Ju|'hoan San groups previously resid-ed in territories or resource areas known as n!oresi. Over the last decade some 200 of the 300 n!oresi have been mapped by the Ju|'hoan San using the global positioning system (GPS).

Linked to the n!oresi is the system of gift exchange called hxaro or “generosity partnership.”

The most popular gifts were ostrich eggshell bead jewelry, arrowheads, spears, musical instruments, and knives. Nowadays gift exchange no longer plays the same role as when the Ju|’hoan San were active hunt-er-gatherers, but the skill of making eggshell beads is still very much alive. The decoration was traditionally not used for sandals, and has been added to give them a more desirable feeling within the global market. The beads are made solely out of ostrich eggshells, sourced from farmers in Namibia and South Africa. In the past gift exchange was the only delayed exchange between the Ju|’hoansi. Individuals made jewellery both for personal use and for ritual hxaro, which served as a channel of communication between communities or n!oresi.

A map with n!oresi in Nyae Nyae is visible here, made by Hitchcock, to help visualize the movement and belonging of the cobblers.

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eland, but these days he and his people are forbidden to do so—instead, the Ministry of Environment and Tourism organizes trophy hunts for tourists who are given permits to kill eland using guns. Joseph Kunta prefers hunting barefoot as it is the fastest way. But he also likes closed Western shoes which he finds comfortable, although he points out that the laces can cause accidents. Sometimes, Joseph says, they killed other animals, like a giraffe, and used the stomach skin for making sandals, although it was a very tough material to handle during the making process.

Joseph (|Kun |Kunta)

Joseph (|Kun |Kunta) has been the chief of Nhoma and Jaq’na for ten years. He is in his fifties, was born in Nhoma, and was a soldier in the South African Army from 1978 until 1989, just before Namibia gained independence. With his wife Maria (Di||xao in the Ju|’hoan language), he had eight children, only five of whom are still alive. His military career earned him some financial independence, and he owned two cars at one point. Since 1999 he has worked for a local lodge owner at Nhoma. Joseph knows a lot about the old traditions and the use of different parts of the eland. The eland’s intestines and stomach can be used as water reservoirs and other parts are used for fortune telling or medicine by healers. He remembers his father hunting eland and making sandals. In those days they did not remove the fur of the skin while tanning and made a concave outsole to make the tracks of their gait visible.

Besides being headman, Joseph is also a hunter, a traditional healer, and a caretaker of his people. He used to go hunting for

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N!ani N‡amce (better known as Pieter) is the older brother of Tsamkxao and N!hunkxa, and he moves regularly between Nhoma and Tsumkwe. He has been an enthusiastic cobbler since the project started in 2016. Known for his skills in woodcarving and furniture­making, he is in charge of cutting soles out of eland skin and he assisted in building the workplace at Jaq’na in 2017. Pieter previously served in the army (the Namibian Defence Force), and although he made a good living out of it he felt he was too far from Nhoma and his family. He also worked as a farmer and is skilled in tracking animals for trophy­hunting safaris.

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N!hunkxa is married to Steve !Ui Kunta and they have six children. She lived in Nhoma for thirty years, before moving to Tsumkwe. Now forty­two, she has always loved to work with textiles, and used to make items such as dresses, little bags, pillows, and wallets. N!hunkxa now stitches of the shoe bags and decorates them with ostrich eggshell beads. These bags are inspired by the traditional hunting bag. She loves the work and would like to train other women to do it. N!hunkxa owns a sewing machine, and her worst fear is that something would happen to it, putting her out of her job.

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!Ui Kunta (Steve) Steve has coordinated the San­dal project since the beginning. He keeps track of orders and communicates internationally as well as locally about their status. He is responsible for delivering the finished product. Quality control is part of his task. Together with his wife N!hunkxa and their six children, he has a house in Tsumkwe. Regularly he is involved in tourism activities and research in the area. He is part of the Ju|’hoan transcription group, speaks and writes fluent Ju|’hoan and English and is often hired for translating and tour­guiding jobs. He wants to start his own tourism platform in Nyae Nyae.

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Tsamkxao N‡amce, thirty­three, was born in Tsumkwe and lived briefly in Nhoma before moving back to Tsumkwe to go to school until the age of fifteen. He is married to ||’Asa and they have seven children together. He has been a cobbler since the project started in 2016, and is especially skilled in the final stitching of the sandal, although he knows all aspects of sandal making. Tsamkxao, the brother of N!ani and N!hunkxa, who are both involved in the project as well, remembers his parents wearing the eland sandals.

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Komsta Kashe (or Ruben) is in his late twenties and married to Evelyne. They have three children. Komtsa was born in Olifantwater and later moved to Samagaigai with his family. He attended school in Tsumkwe and in Aasvoelnes, graduating aged nineteen, and moved to Omaruru to work as a hunter in the trophy­hunting safari business between 2003 and 2014. In Omaruru there was no hunting for eland, only for springbok. zebra, kudus, impala, and oryx. Like N!ani, he felt he was living too far from his family so he moved back to Nhoma region.

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Tci!xo Ben (or Lucia) is in charge of decorations, and she is the wife of |aice. She organizes the work at Nhoma and, together with Di||xao, involves more women when facing a large order. She joined the project in September 2017, alongside her husband.

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N‡amce |Kun is the team’s youngest male cobbler and not yet married. He calls himself the “office man” as he is in charge of the precise measuring work needed for lace cutting—one of very few stages in sandal making that requires a table. He has golden hands for this detailed work. Before becoming a cobbler he carved wooden objects for the craft store at Nhoma.

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Di||xao is the oldest daughter of Pieter (N!ani N‡amce). She makes the small shoe ornaments for the female sandal—the beads made of egg shells. The female sandal comes with removable decorations made from ostrich eggshell beads and guinea­fowl or francolin feathers. Di||xao takes care of her siblings and works from home when she can.

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!Aice Dam, now thirty­one, was born in Jaq’na, near Nhoma, a village located close to Tsumkwe in the north­west of Namibia. Since September 2017, when the atelier moved to his village, he has been working as a cobbler. He is skilled in the making of outsoles and branding of the footwear. Each sandal features a cheetah footprint embossed by an artisan. The cheetah is known for its speed and hunt­ing skills. He was not familiar with sandal making before the project came to Nhoma, and has no recollection of his father wearing traditional sandals, as he joined the South African Defence Force during colonial times and was often away. He says most people had fathers who were serving the army in those days, and cannot remember their parents wearing the traditional sandal. He appreciates the eland as it not only provides leather for sandals but also ingredients for medicines.

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108 109Tool used for the production of the n!ang n|osi, or eland antelope sandal. Nyae Nyae Conservancy, Namibia, 2018. © Thomas Nolf

The Ju|’hoansi of Nyae Nyae, Namibia: A Historical and Anthropological Perspective

Robert K. Hitchcock

109Measuring tape used for the production of the n!ang n|osi. Nyae Nyae Conservancy, Namibia, 2018. © Thomas Nolf

The Ju|’hoansi are among the best known, most thoroughly studied indi genous peoples on the planet. Intensive anthro po­logical work among them began in 1950 with the Marshall family expeditions to the Nyae Nyae area of Namibia, then under South African administration and known as South West Africa (Marshall 1976:1–11; J. Marshall 2003; Marshall Thomas 2006:43–85; Barbash 2017). These expeditions began when Laurence Marshall, an entrepreneur from Boston, Massachusetts, sold his interest in the Raytheon Company. His wife Lorna Marshall was an anthropo­logist, and they began a decade­long journey to the Kalahari with their children John and Elizabeth. First visiting the |Xai |Xai area in Botswana, they heard of people living as mobile hunter­gatherers across the border in the Nyae Nyae area.

The Marshall family went to the |Gautscha area of South West Africa in 1951, where they carried out detailed ethno­graphic work and visual documentation of the Ju|’hoansi until 1961. Their approach was heavily interdisciplinary, and over the years they brought a variety of scholars and specialists, from botanists to archaeologists and photographers, into their camps. Their

The Ju|’hoansi (Bushmen) of northeastern Namibia and northwestern Botswana are among the few African indigenous peoples who have been able to retain a portion of their original land. Today, the Ju|’hoansi, who number some 12,000 people on both sides of the Namibia­Botswana border, are coping with significant social, political, economic, and environmental change. Originally mobile hunter­gatherers, vir­tual ly all Ju|’hoansi now have a settled lifestyle with diversified economic systems, combining foraging, pastoralism, agri­cultural production, wage labor, manu­facture and sale of crafts, exploitation of high value plants, and tourism.

The term Ju|’hoansi, meaning “true people” or “real people,” refers to those who describe themselves as Ju; they differentiate themselves from neighboring groups such as the !Xuun and the ||Au||esi who also speak Ju|’hoan languages. Ju|’hoansi is a “click” language that linguists classify as one of the three San language families (Güldemann 2014). Its speakers have resided in the region for generations, and the archaeological and genetic records indicate that they have links going back as much as 200,000 years.

110 111Tsumkwe Craft Centre, Namibia. © Thomas Nolf

primary focus of study was on people who were “traditional,” that is, whose social structure, livelihood strategies, and belief systems were intact and minimally impacted by outside agencies. The five­episode docu­mentary film A Kalahari Family (2002), made by John Marshall, tried to capture a hunter­gatherer way of life as it was between the 1950s and 1960s without exoticization.

Germany had begun their colonial administration of Namibia in 1884, and consolidated their hold on the region by allocating much of the productive land in central and southern South West Africa to German farmers. South African military forces entered the territory at the beginning of the First World War, and in 1919 the country was ceded to Africa under the League of Nations “mandate system.” Racial discrimination on the part of the South West African administration, then overseen by the government of South Africa, intensified after the Second World War (Wallace 2011; Melber 2014).

In the 1950s the Nyae Nyae area, where the Ju|’hoansi resided, was one of the communal, or tribal, areas that made up about 36 percent of South West Africa. In 1949, the government had established

a Commission on the Preservation of the Bushmen. Its report, issued in 1951, identified only the area occupied by the Ju|’hoansi as Bushmanland, leaving out the country’s dozen or so other San peoples.

As it turned out, the Ju|’hoansi were relatively isolated from much of the de­velop ment in the rest of South West Africa, though labor recruiters did go to Nyae Nyae in 1957 in search of men to work in the mines of South West Africa and South Africa. The wide­ranging work of the Marshalls and their co­workers led to their establishment of the Ju|wa (Ju|’hoan) Cattle Fund in 1981, which began supplying animals, tools, seeds, and water to Ju|’hoan communities (Marshall and Ritchie 1984). Throughout that decade, the Cattle Fund and later the Ju|Wa Bushmen Develop ment Project worked to enhance the land rights and wellbeing of the Ju|’hoansi, who also established their own community­based organization, the Nyae Nyae Farmers Cooperative, and a later a support program, the Nyae Nyae Development Foundation of Namibia (Biesele and Hitchcock 2013).

111Making guinea fowl decoration for the sandal with ostrich eggshell beads, Nhoma, Namibia. © Thomas Nolf

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8,992 km2. It is bounded by the Botswana­Namibia border to the east, the border of the neighboring N‡a Jaq’na Conservancy (which was declared officially in 2003) to the west, and the Red Line, or veterinary cordon fence, to the south. To the north of Nyae Nyae and N‡a Jaq’na is the Okavango West region and the 3,840 km2 Khaudum National Park. Originally established as the Khaudum Game Reserve in 1986, it was declared a national park in 2007, and over 200 Ju|’hoansi were relocated from it to the northern part of Nyae Nyae, N‡a Jaq’na, and to the Nhoma area between the two conservancies. Nyae Nyae is located in the Otjozondjupa Region, one of the fourteen regions of Namibia, and Tsumkwe is its administrative center.

The Ju|’hoansi were among the first San of Namibia to get a Traditional Authority (TA) in 1998. The first TA, Tsamkxao ≠Oma, is still leading the Nyae Nyae Conservancy, and continues to play an important role in managing the region. Nyae Nyae created a Community Forest in March 2013 to protect forest lands within the boundaries of the conservancy. Land allocation decisions are the responsibility of the Otjozondjupa Regional Land Board based in Otjivarango,

The region and its management

The run­up to independence on 21 March, 1990 was a difficult time for the Ju|’hoansi, some of whom had been pressed into serving in the South West African Territorial Force (SWATF) and the South African Defense Force (SADF) in the late 1970s and 1980s. Political activity in northern Namibia was intense, and many Ju|’hoansi supported the pro­independence South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO). Some of those who fought with the losing SWATF and SADF were given the option of relocating to South Africa to avoid retribution by the new government. Some 4500 people opted to move to South Africa in 1990 before independence (Hitchcock 2012; Welch 2013). Several thousand more !Xun and Khwe opted to remain in N‡a Jaq’na and were incorporated into the N‡a Jaq’na Conservancy when it was established in 2003.

The Nyae Nyae region is now a conser­vancy under Namibian government legis lation, which means that the people of Nyae Nyae have the right to the use and management of wildlife resources (Republic of Namibia 1996). Founded in early 1998, it is the oldest conservancy in Namibia and covers

114 115N!ani N‡amce (Pieter) and Catherine Willems having a talk about the cobbling activities and the future, Jaq’na, Namibia, 2018. © Thomas Nolf

which the Ju|’hoan TA serves in an advisory role, providing information on land use and occupation history in anticipation of decisions.

The resources of the Ju|’hoansi

Traditionally mobile hunter­gatherers, moving on average three to six times per year to exploit seasonally available resources, today nearly all of the Ju|’hoansi in Nyae Nyae live in thirty­six settled communities including Tsumkwe as well as in some outlying areas. Across the border in Botswana, Ju|’hoansi reside in eight communities stretching from the Tsodilo Hills in the north to |Xai|Xai and |Du|Da. The Ju|’hoansi have mixed economic systems that include foraging for wild plants and animals, gardening, raising cattle and other domestic animals, making and selling crafts such as ostrich eggshell beads, skin bags, bows, arrows, quivers, leather shoulder bags, and net bags for collecting plants.

Nyae Nyae is the only place left in Africa where local people have the right to hunt for subsistence using traditional weapons (Hitchcock 2015). Some of the resulting wildlife products are used in the manufacture of sandals and other items of importance to the Ju|’hoansi.

Only 20 percent of Ju|’hoansi food resources now come from foraging (Lee 2016, 2018); the reasons for this decline in hunter­gathering are complex. Wildlife populations decreased during the colonial and immediate post­colonial eras. Following the establishment of the administrative center at Tsumkwe in the late 1950s, people who moved there were supplied with food and sometimes given live stock and aided in agricultural work. Population expansion in the Nyae Nyae area also contributed, as did the efforts of various non­governmental organizations seeking to encourage the adoption of agri­culture and livestock production. The govern­ment of Namibia also has a broad­based social welfare program which distributes com modities. Some Ju|’hoansi elders receive government pensions, and food and other goods are supplied to people in Nyae Nyae.

The Nyae Nyae Conservancy provides its members with an annual income based on a division of money earned through safari hunting, tourism, and other efforts. As Namibia is one of the twenty­three countries in Africa which allows safari hunting, the conservancy and its members receive some of the resulting meat, income,

115N!ani N‡amce (Pieter) and Catherine Willems keep on talking… Jaq’na, Namibia, 2018. © Thomas Nolf

for the Ju|’hoansi on the Botswana side of the border, who have faced more challenges in recent years than those in Namibia.

The n!oresi or territories

Like most indigenous peoples, the Ju|’hoansi have a strong sense of belonging and attachment to their traditional areas—their n!oresi (territories). This land base has been reduced through competition from peoples entering the area over the past 2000 years, along with various colonial and post­colonial state actions. Areas where the Ju|hoansi reside are now being subjected to a land rush by other groups, private companies, and the state for purposes of grazing, hunting, mining, and tourism. In response, the Ju|’hoansi are seeking to assert the politics of belonging through carefully constructing their self­identity, demonstrating their long­standing ties to the land, recording their histories, and documenting the innovative ways in which they manage and use natural resources.

Among the Ju|’hoansi a n!ore is an area over which local people have rights of access and resource use. It is sometimes given a name, often related to people who

and employment benefits: safari companies operating in the Nyae Nyae area are required to give meat to the Ju|’hoansi from success­ful hunts, for example. The Ju|’hoan TA is also allowed to obtain wild animal meat as part of its support system.

Some Ju|’hoansi in Nyae Nyae work for these safari companies, others have jobs at a private tourism camp at Nhoma, and about a dozen work at the Tsumkwe Lodge, operated by the University Centre for Studies in Namibia (TUCSIN). The Nyae Nyae Con­ser vancy, faith­based institutions, and the government are sources of employment, while half a dozen Ju|’hoan teachers work in the Nyae Nyae Village Schools Program (Hays 2016). Overall, about 12 percent of the Ju|’hoansi in Nyae Nyae are in formal­sector employment.

The Nyae Nyae Conservancy generated over N$5 million (US$417,600) through its activities in 2017, while the N‡a Jaq’na Conservancy, Namibia’s largest communal conservancy, generated over N$1 million (US$83,520). The people of the Nyae Nyae and the N‡a Jaq’na conservancies generally say that they see tourism as an important part of their livelihoods; some would like to see tourist numbers increase. This is also true

116 117African eland antelope, Otavi, Namibia, 2018. © Thomas Nolf

lived there in the past or events that occurred there. In some cases, in northeast Namibia and northwest Botswana, n!oresi contain pans where water accumulates during the rainy season or is present year­round. There are a dozen pans in the Dobe­|Xai|Xai area

and as many as fifteen in Nyae Nyae that serve as focal points of Ju|’hoan settlements or activities. N!ore sizes vary substantially, but range from 200 to 400 km in Nyae Nyae, and rights to the n!oresi are inherited from both sets of parents, that is, bilaterally.©

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117Gathering at Jaq’na, Namibia, 2018. © Thomas Nolf

land. This was particularly important in light of other people entering the area to take advantage of grazing and water sources that same year, a process that has continued in subsequent years, specifically from 2009 to the present (Hays 2009; Hitchcock 2015).

Ju|’hoan individuals can also gain rights in n!oresi with the permission of n!ore kxaosi (land managers). These individuals are usually older people in the group who have an understanding of the history of land use and occupancy of the areas where they live. It is these individuals who are consulted on issues such as whether people can occupy specific places or move in specific directions. The n!ore kxaosi are well known to the local group as well as to other Ju|’hoansi, and tend to be the ones from whom outsiders seek permis sion to enter a n!ore and use its resources (Biesele and Hitchcock 2013:54–59). Some of these individuals are local headmen or head­women; the overall “chief” of the Nyae Nyae region is Tsamkxao ‡Oma, the Ju|’hoan TA.

In cooperation with non­governmental organizations and researchers, the Ju|’hoansi have engaged in community ethnocartographic mapping, documenting the distribution and characteristics of their n!oresi. They have used these maps in meetings such as the 1991 National Land Conference in Windhoek. After the presentation of the n!ore map at that conference, the first president of Namibia, Sam Nujoma, told the people of Nyae Nyae that they had the right to their ©

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118 119Talk with the main cobblers on where and how to build a new shoe atelier, Jaq’na, Namibia, 2018. © Thomas Nolf

A legal case against those defined as “illegal immigrants,” filed in June 2015 with the Namibia High Court, was decided in favor of the Ju|’hoansi and the Nyae Nyae Forest Management Committee on August 10, 2018.

From a political standpoint, the Ju|’hoansi in Namibia consider themselves a minority people who have been historically disadvantaged. Their representatives have attended the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York and, until 2006, meetings of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations in Geneva. The UN considers the Ju|’hoansi to be indi gen­ous people, as do international organizations such as the International Labor Organization. In Namibia, the government sees the Ju|’hoansi as part of the country’s “marginalized com­mu ni ties,” and has a development program for the Ju|’hoansi as well as the San, Himba, and Ovatue, under the auspices of the Marginalized Communities Division.

The Ju|’hoansi describe their collective land as the kxa|ho. As they put it, “This is the place to which we belong.” They see their connections in multi­dimensional terms—to place, persons, resources (vegetation, animals, and useful materials such as stone for tools

and ochre), the people who came before them (ancestors), and the nation­states in which they reside today.

Anthropologist Polly Wiessner says that “Land rights were largely maintained by social boundary maintenance, with hxaro (xaro, haro) partnerships giving others temporary access” (Wiessner 2014:14028). Hxaro is a reciprocal, delayed Ju|’hoan exchange system involving goods distribution (often ostrich eggshell bead bracelets and necklaces) which link people together as partners over extensive areas. This kind of exchange net work is also found among X’ao­||’aen (||Au||esi), Ju|’hoan speakers who reside in the Omaheke Region of Namibia to the south and in the northern Ghanzi District at Groot Laagte in Botswana. Some Ju|’hoansi and X’ao­||’aen say that they can tell if people are from their groups based on the kinds of beads they are wearing.

The amount of land possessed by the Ju|’hoansi has declined substantially over time. Portions of the ancestral Ju|’hoan territories were lost as a result of decisions by the colo nial and post­colonial admini strations of South West Africa (now Namibia) and Bechuanaland

119Tea and coffee gathering near Nhoma, Namibia, 2018. © Thomas Nolf

modernization and development among the Ju|’hoansi. Tensions have arisen between those who have jobs and are relatively well­off and those who do not. Wealthy individuals are sometimes accused of being “far­hearted” and unwilling to share food and other resources. Yet sharing is still a crucial part of the social system of the Ju|’hoansi, and wealthier individuals do provide assistance of various kinds to kin and neighbors, which remains an important means of support.

The Ju|’hoansi in Nyae Nyae and Dobe­|Xai|Xai often say they belong to this land; many feel that it is their mother. They empha­size their emotional and spiri tual attachment to it, and to its terrain and resources. From an administrative standpoint, however, they do not have de jure (legal) access to their land, so are still at risk of land takeovers by outsiders.

The Ju|’hoansi understand the limita­tions of the concept of “indigeneity,” arguing that they are citizens of the two countries in which they reside and therefore have rights equal to other citizens. They are quick to point out that they want to take full advantage of the benefits of modernity and development, while seeking to protect and promote their language and culture with the aim of passing

(now Botswana) (Biesele and Hitchcock 2013:17). The Khaudum Game Reserve, mentioned previously, is an example of this forced relocation, a process that occurred in 2007 when it was declared a national park by the Namibian government. During the colonial era, areas to the west of Nyae Nyae were developed into the commercial Grootfontein Farms, and areas to the south were allo­cated to the Herero under the apartheid­era Odendaal Commission in the 1960s (Wallace 2011:243, 261–266, 277). Further south in what is now the Otjozondjupa Region are the Omaheke Farms, where several thousand Ju|’hoansi live on commercial and resettlement farms with Europeans, Hereros, and others.

Some contemporary issues

The emergence of a cash income from crafts and jobs has resulted in changes in Ju|’hoan society, with the beginnings of what might be described as a less egalitarian, less reciprocity­based system in which some individuals and families are now better off than their neighbors. This poses a dilemma for organizations attempting to promote

120 121|Aice drawing backstraps, Jaq’na, Namibia, 2018. © Thomas Nolf

their cultural heritage, traditions and values along to their children.

Ju|’hoansi want to have both their collective and individual rights recognized. They also stress that the kxa|ho, “the land­scape of home,” is under threat, and want to regain access to lands and resources they have lost. They are hopeful that some of the economic benefits from development and tourism can be invested in legal efforts to establish their customary rights to com­munal land, which they believe belongs to them and has been in their hands and hearts forever.

Acknowledgments

Support for the research upon which this text is based was provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation (grant BCS 1122932), Brot für die Welt (Project No. 2013 0148 G), and the Millennium Challenge Account-Namibia (MCA-N). I thank the Nyae Nyae Development Foundation of Namibia, the Nyae Nyae Conservancy, the Ju|’hoan TA, and the people of the Nyae Nyae region for their help, advice, and information. Melinda Kelly, Els Roe-landt, Catherine Willems, and Jenifer Evans provid-ed very useful editorial comments and suggestions for the improvement of this article.

References

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121Pieter filling up a glue reservoir, Jaq’na, Namibia, 2018. © Thomas Nolf

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122 123Fitting the sole patterns on the hide before cutting them out. Tsumkwe, Namibia, 2018. © Thomas Nolf

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Wiessner, Polly (1986) Kung San networks in a generational perspective. In The Past and Future of !Kung Ethnography: Criti-cal Reflections and Symbolic Perspectives. Essays to Honor Lorna Marshall, Megan Biesele, ed. with Robert Gordon and Richard Lee, pp. 103–136. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag.

Wiessner, Polly (2002) Hunting, Healing, and Hxaro Exchange: A Long-Term Perspective on !Kung (Ju|’hoansi) Large-Game Hunting. Evolution and Human Behavior 23:407–436.

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123N!hunkxa at work in the Craft Centre, Tsumkwe, Namibia, 2018. © Thomas Nolf

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133Steve Kunta, !amace IKun and N‡amce |Kun making backstraps for the sandal, ||XaIoba, Namibia 2016. © Flora Blommaert

the sole, which is only suitable for sandy environments. A decision was made to add an extra sole to the original sandal, and use a stitch that connects the insole to the outsole. With these and other simple design interventions, the sandal was made suitable for urban wear.

This activity proceeded the making of prototypes for the crowdfunding campaign that was successfully launched through Kickstarter in 2016. In one month’s time, 633 persons pledged GBP92,000—an order of 1440 pairs.

As a follow­up to the first collaboration, I returned for a three­month master­internship from January to April 2016. During this time, tools were bought, patterns were made and organized, and quality­control guidelines were written down. In June 2016 the crowdfunding campaign kicked off together with the set­up

In April 2015 two design students, Sophie Verclyte and myself of KASK / School of Arts Ghent, lived and worked with the Ju|’hoansi in Nhoma, Namibia. Under the supervision of Catherine Willems and funded by Vivobarefoot, we collaborated on reviving the almost extinct craft of indi genous sandal making and its biomechanics.

In November 2015 a second visit to Nyae Nyae was organized with the intention of making the sandal more suitable for city environments and refining the product. At the same time Future Footwear Foundation (FFF) finished investigating the differences between barefoot walking and walking with eland­leather sandals through biomechanical measuring with a plantar pressure plate. The original sandal positions the knots of the laces under E

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of all necessary equipment, including solar panels, a sewing machine and batteries, knives, and other tools.

In March 2017 the team was reinfor­ced with the addition of Rory Kurtis—a PhD student under FFF working at the University of Liverpool. He conducted research on the strength of the big toe, comparing barefoot and shod populations.

Meanwhile, the shoemakers conti nued production with the logistical help of a local NGO, Nanofasa. In August 2017 masters stu­dent Jolien Deceuninck helped to build a new shoemakers’ atelier in collaboration with the local villagers. The materials were provided by FFF. In this atelier close to Nhoma (Jaq’na), more than half of the order generated from the Kickstarter campaign were  produced. The space turned out not only to be well locat ed, in terms of transport and as a place of interest and interaction, but it  also increased the production rate.

Due to an accident with the solar batteries the atelier burned down a few months later. As everything was destroyed and new solar panels were not available, production was temporarily relocated to the Craft Centre in Tsumkwe.  

Towards a new craft center

By August 2018 the full Kickstarter order of 1440 pairs was completed and the idea of building a new, more solid atelier near Nhoma started to grow. The cobblers sat down with Bruno Spaas, a Belgium­based architect. They reflected on the future construction.

This atelier needs to be durable to cope with natural forces such as bushfires and heavy storms, to blend in with the environ ment, and to use local, ecological building materials.

In connection with the availability of natural resources and in line with the tradi­tions of the Ju|’hoansi, they developed an idea for a future building: The new atelier should provide an inside workspace, a central open area with a fireplace, and a storage room to keep the materials, skins, and finished sandals out of the sunlight. The building should be totally roofed, giving shelter against rain and sun.

Constructions in the Kalahari are known to be very vulnerable due to extreme weather conditions and a rich variety of insects, nesting in soil, wood, and grass. So the building of the atelier and roof

135Flora Blommaert starts the construction of a wall with recycled bottles, Jaq’na, Namibia, 2017. © Catherine Willems

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should only use a minimum amount of wood. Sustainable construction material should also be used and imported material avoided.

Namibian land is mainly covered by sand. The deeper layers of lime­rich clay only find their way to the surface through the genius constructions of termite mounts. When the termites abandon their houses, an empty earth pile stays behind. This is a typical sight in a Namibian landscape.

For wall construction and roof tiles, earth harvested from the empty termite mounts is mainly used to create stable blocks and tiles. After being molded, the bricks and tiles are left to dry and harden in the sun. Tests are currently being done on the correct amount needed per material to make durable roof tiles and compressed earth bricks.

Both the tiles and bricks for the atelier will be produced and built by the local community. This means the cobblers carry the project into the future, giving it new meaning and exploring new approaches to sustainable design. As such the new craft center is meant to be more than a shoe making unit, in that it will also train more people in various crafts.

Pieter and N‡amce looking for tools after the accident. Jaq’na, Namibia, 2018. © Thomas Nolf

137The atelier after it burnt down, Jaq’na, Namibia, 2018. © Thomas Nolf

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Infogram Future Footwear Foundation

Future Footwear Foundation fosters the under­standing of human locomotion and sustainable footwear design for body and environment.

Integrating across overlapping and inter­secting themes—PEOPLE (anthropology), PLANET (sustainable design and technology), and FEET (biomechanics)—Future Footwear Foundation explores the relation between materials, skill, and design methods in various communities and questions the conventional thinking on design, production, and healthy gait.

Catherine Willems (KASK / School of Arts, Ghent, Belgium) founded Future Footwear Foundation to scale up concepts developed for her doctoral research to global activities and sustain the conver­gence beyond term­limited research.

The foundation serves both as a plat­form for cross­disciplinary studies and as a hub for interaction between artisans and academic and private­sector units all over the world. The foundation respects and safe­guards (in)tangible heritage of the indigenous communities and promotes local economies and livelihoods for the artisans with attention

for environmental impact. The biomechanical component of FFF (FEET) is realized in colla boration with Kristiaan D’Août (Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, University of Liverpool). Design­related aspects involve close collaboration with Vivobarefoot and the artisan communities that are bringing indigenous collections to the market (PEOPLE). The convergence of indigenous craftsmanship with modern technology and materials to create alternatives for designing and producing footwear (for instance, with 3D printing) is realized in collaboration with industry partners (for instance, RS Print and Materialise) and with academic partners (for instance London College of Fashion, Master Footwear Design) (PLANET).

Learning from indigenous footwear and combining insights from different disci­plines can guide the design of sustainable, minimal footwear, because:(1) Indigenous footwear is often

biomechanically similar to barefoot walking;

(2) Local handmade footwear is adapted to and sustainable for the environment; and

Future Footwear Foundation

KASK / SCHOOL OF ARTS — VIVOBAREFOOT — LONDON COLLEGE OF FASHION — UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL

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(3) New 3D­printing with laser sintering is closest to indigenous production in the amount of excess waste and in tools and manpower needed.

The in­depth research with the cobblers on their footwear and gait has revealed design features that need to be incorporated while creating sustainable footwear. Performance, production, consumption, material, after­life, and sustainability of local economies are taken into consideration by FFF by the start of each new project.

The foundation evolves continuously when collaborating with different artisan communities, institutes, and companies around the globe, in the process using its findings to inform new educational activities and curating the ever expanding databank of biomechanical data on barefoot and shod walking.

Sustainable footwear for body and environment

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Living and working with indigenous cobblers and studying

their craft and skill around shoes and feet.

PLANET

Working together to create shoes inspired by indigenous designs but adapted to urban lifestyles,

while exploring new approaches and technologies in order to

achieve sustainable production.

FEET

Studying biomechanics and foot health.

Sami artisansSogsakk Finlandwww.sogsakk.fi

Juttee artisansDastkar, India

www.dastkar.com

Toehold artisansAthni, India

www.toeholdindia.com

3D printworldwide production

Ju|’hoansi artisansNyae Nyae Conservancy,

Namibia

140 141Foot, photographed during fieldwork as part of a biomechanical analysis, Nhoma, Namibia, 2018. © Thomas Nolf

Flora Blommaert

Flora Blommaert graduated from KASK / School of Arts, Ghent, in multi­media design in 2018. She spent a KASK Arts in Practice internship in the Kalahari Basin in Namibia assisting her supervisor Catherine Willems, founder of the Future Footwear Foundation. She is currently an employee of FFF, managing all research related aspects of the San­dal project in Namibia.

Kristiaan D’Août

Kristiaan D’Août is a biomechanist with a zoology background (Antwerp University), and with a long­standing interest in human loco­motion. He works in the Evolutionary Morpho­logy & Biomechanics Group of the Institute of Ageing and Chronic Disease at the University of Liverpool. His current work focuses on understanding human locomotion on complex substrates and in ecological settings. The effect of footwear is a core aspect of his work and he runs several projects related to the effects of footwear on gait. D’Août teaches biomechanics and has written about 65 publications on evolutionary morphology and biomechanics.

Christine De Baan

Christine de Baan is an independent curator, editor, moderator, and strategic advisor in the field of art, architecture, and design. In this last capacity she laid the foundations in 2016 for State of Fashion, an international platform for fair, green, and inclusive fashion in Arnhem, the Netherlands, and was its first director. With her foundation ROAM, she has organized exhibitions and conferences that focus on a more sustainable and equitable future, in Beijing, Cape Town, and Rotterdam.

Robert K. Hitchcock

Robert K. Hitchcock is an adjunct professor of anthropology at the University of New Mexico and a professor of geography at Michigan State University. He also serves as a member of the board of directors of the Kalahari Peoples Fund, a US non­profit organization that assists low­income people in southern Africa. Hitchcock has worked on indigenous peoples’ rights and development issues in Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas since the 1970s. His most recent work in Namibia took place in June, 2018.

141Foot, photographed during fieldwork as part of a biomechanical analysis, Nhoma, Namibia, 2018. © Thomas Nolf

Catherine Willems

Catherine Willems, a design anthropologist, combines her work as designer, lecturer and researcher. She is based at KASK /School of Arts, Ghent. With an educational background in comparative cultural sciences at Ghent University and footwear design at Ars Sutoria in Milan, Willems’ PhD brought together biomechanics, anthropology, and design sciences. She explored relations between materials, skills, and design methods in various communities and questioned conventional thinking on design, production, and creativity. Inspired by the convergence of traditional wisdom and modern technology, Willems has now embarked on a follow­up study, Future Footwear 2.0, which aims to bring sustainable production and individual needs closer together through 3D­printing. Early in 2017 she founded the Future Footwear Foundation to create footwear that is sustainable for body and environment and foster collaborations between artisans, students, and synergistic units in academia and private sectors.

Els Roelandt

Els Roelandt is a Brussels­based art historian. Before working as an editor at KASK / School of Arts, Ghent, she was co­founder and chief editor of the internationally renowned A Prior Magazine (1999 – 2012). She is editor of several books made at KASK, such as Cercle d’art des travailleurs de plantation congolaise (with Renzo Martens) and Plain / Purl (with Els Huygelen). She has been working with Catherine Willems and Future Footwear Foundation for two years.

143

Postscript

142Tool set for shoe-pattern design, Porto, Portugal, 2014. © David Willems

143

The good aspect is that people here now have their own project, besides maybe trying to get jobs in tourism, from the government, for different companies. Maybe for you people from overseas, the footwear looks unique. For us it is what our elders, our ancestors were doing, making, and wearing, so that they always had shoes to wear, everywhere they went. Especially when it came to the hot season—people know it is very dry in the Kalahari—you had to protect your feet from the hot sand. In the past our ancestors killed the eland, got the skin, made the shoes, and they were ok. Today, for us, now that we have access to skins again, it seems we have got something back that we thought was in the past and lost.

!Ui Kunta (Steve Kunta)Ju|’hoan cobbler, translator, and local guide, Tsumkwe, Namibia

Yesterday anthropologists went out to “do research on X, Y and Z”. People were “objecti fied”, disrespectfully classified, and most of all misunderstood. Westerners gather­ed knowledge about, not with, let alone in close interaction with people. As the colonial period came to an end, postcolonial critique started.

Future Footwear Foundation, founded by Catherine Willems, acknowledges this past injustice and together with local communities, pushes design anthropology and collaborations in a new direction. FFF design shoes for the present world, working closely together with “the other”, deeply interacting with them as equal partners when introducing their ideas and knowledge for the world market. That is decolonized working. It is still rare. It is respectful, egalitarian, collaborative. In this new book with cobblers from India, Finland, Belgium, the UK, and Namibia, Els Roelandt and Willems present a refreshing and much­needed vision, clearly depicting the integrated roles of artisans, scientists, and industry partners.

Rik PinxtenProfessor Emeritus of Anthropology andReligious Studies at Ghent University,Belgium

100% personalized 3D-printed footwear based on features of indigenous Indian footwear. Ghent, Belgium, 2018. © Thomas Nolf

144 145A new order has arrived, Jaq’na, Namibia, 2018. © Thomas Nolf

ment and biomechanics—and it was stunning to see young and old glide through nature with such grace and connection. It was no coinci­dence then that we also found there the original sandal, made from the local antelope, which allowed people to run all day over hot­baked sand without puncturing the soles of their feet on razor­sharp camel thorns… My own personal cobbling journey has been enriched and enlight­ened beyond my imagination through interac­tions with the FFF. The more we learn, the more results come back from the biomechanic studies, and the more prototypes we test, the more we believe in our shared mission—to bring healthy feet back to the world through sensitive sustainable future footwear made foot­by­foot from local replenishable and biodegradable materials, just like our ancestors made them many years ago and, in part thanks to the FFF, a few people still do today.

And the best bit is that it still feels like we have only taken a few small steps on what will be a long and exciting journey, and I can’t wait to see what our collaboration might bring next…

Galahad ClarkFounder & Managing Director,VIVOBAREFOOT, London, UK

My family have been cobblers for six gene­rations, but thanks to meeting Catherine Willems and joining the Future Footwear Foundation I have been introduced to cobblers from more than 6,000 generations! The values and mission of the FFF beauti­fully align with Vivobarefoot: “Feet, People and Planet.” We have been on a wonderful journey of discovery, education, and inspi­ration from ancient indigenous wisdom to pioneering digital innovation.

Working with Catherine over the last five years has been a unique blend of sensitive academic inquiry and fascinating revelation, but always grounded in actually doing it: from creating new variants of traditional reindeer moccasins in the Sami cultural crafts center in northern Finland, to adjusting last patterns with cobblers who could use their feet like hands on the sunset rooftops of the tiger reserves in Ranthambore, to producing high­tech 3D scans and digital transformations in the most advanced biomechanic and additive manufacturing laboratories of Northern Europe. There has never been a dull moment and I’ve never doubted the sincerity of the endeavour or authenticity of the project or its mentor.

When I first visited the bushmen of the Kalahari it was to study their natural move­

145 Jaq’na, Namibia, 2018. © Thomas Nolf

Contemporary challenges for the design of clothing and footwear are both ecological and social. The modern European way of dealing with clothing and footwear —fashion—is outdated, as it is largely at odds with these challenges.

For the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK) and the Royal Conservatory, a shift of focus from fashion to practices which take into account the wider social and ecological context is paramount. KASK researchers’ voices are generally heard in topical debates on art and design and their social contexts. Some of our researchers use their particular expertise to contribute to developing a sus­tainable society. An anthropologically inspired approach, for instance, may focus on cross­cultural creation, opening up new insights and possibilities.

An awareness of the political and social context of design practices is evident in the critical and engaged nature of Catherine Willems’ research at KASK. Catherine’s Future Footwear Foundation supports collaborative design experiments and offers interdisciplinary and intercultural research into creative foot­wear­design processes in different regions of the world. FFF is taking into account collective

as well as individual approaches to creativity, including the ethical and legislative difficulties of claiming indigenous knowledge and skills as cultural heritage.

Walking has a long and rich cultural history. Many artists and writers have used ways of walking to express essential aspects of what it means to be human, from John Bunyan’s The Pilgrims Progress (1678), via William Gilpin’s tours of the Lake District and Jean­Jacques Rousseau’s Reveries of a Solitary Walker (1782), to Richard Long’s A Line Made by Walking (1967) and Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker’s ongoing project My Walking is My Dancing… As FFF explores new ways of walking, it reveals to us new ways of being human.

Wim De TemmermanDean, Royal Academy of Fine Arts& Royal Conservatory Ghent,Belgium

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This book is published on the occasion of the international launch of the Future Footwear Foundation.

Art Paper EditionsAPE#122Do You Want Your Feet Back?© 2018,Art Paper EditionsISBN 9789490800994artpapereditions.orgFirst print of 1500 copies, December 2018

Co­published by KASK &

Conservatorium, the school of arts of HOGENT and howest

Editors Els Roelandt Catherine Willems

Editorial coordination Els Roelandt

Editorial assistance Flora Blommaert

Foreword Christine De Baan

Contributing authors Kristiaan D’Août Robert Hitchcock Catherine Willems Flora Blommaert

Copy­editing Evans editorial

Transcription (interviewswith cobblers of theNyae Nyae Conservancy)

Flora Blommaert

Graphic design 6'56"

Printing Albe De Coker

Photo credits Kristiaan D’Août Thomas Nolf David Willems Shiva Kumar Eelko Moorer Catherine Willems Flora Blommaert

© 2018, Catherine Willems, Future Footwear Foundation

This book is made possible with the generous support of Vivobarefoot, KASK & Conservatorium, the school of arts of HOGENT and howest, Future Footwear Foundation.

The editors wish to specially thank the FFF collaborators: London College of Fashion, Materialise, RsPrint, RsScan, the University of Liverpool, Vivobarefoot and the cobblers of the Nyae Nyae Conservancy, the Kolhapuri artisans in India, and the Sami artisans in Inari.

We would like to thank Tci!xo Ben, |Kunta Bo, Josef Cgunda, Madhura Chatrapathy, Tsamkxao Ciqae, Asher Clark, Kristiaan D’Août, Jolien Deceuninck, Dirk Declercq, David Depestel, Wim De Temmerman, Dries De Wit, |Ukxa G|aq’o, Robert Hitchcock, Ujwala Jodda, Melinda Kelly, Raghu Kerayil, Devika Krishnan, Steve !Ui Kunta, Virpi Laasko, Megan Laws, Tilmann Lenssen Ertz, Ellen Monstrey, Eelko Moorer, Pieter N!ani N‡amce, Tsamkxao Guri N‡amce, N!hunkxa N‡amce, Di||xao N!ani, |Aice Ndam, Aleksandra Ørbeck–Nilssen, Rik Pinxten, Komtsa Kashe Ruben, Gäetane Stassijns, Bruno Spaas, Lynn Stydom, Jonas Temmerman, Dries Vandecruys, Dennis Vandenbussche, Dirk Van Gogh, Lien Van Leemput, Sofie Verclyte, Moritz Von Hase and Katrien Vuylsteke Vanfleteren.

We also thank the community of Tsumkwe, Nhoma, and Jaq’na, the Captain Kxao Kxami Library of Tsumkwe, the Craft Centre of Tsumkwe, the artisans and management of Toehold Artisans Cooperative and of Daskar, Saami Education Center.

Cover image: Materialise, Future Footwear FoundationInside cover images: © Thomas Nolf

What makes Catherine Willems’ work on “future footwear” so appealing is its promise to leapfrog more than 150 years of industrialization, with all its attendant afflictions—environmental des truc tion, depletion of natural resources, extreme global inequality—and bring us straight into a cleaner and fairer future, while taking cues from ancient knowledge and craft. The research brings three disparate fields together: traditional footwear in very different indigenous cultures (Kolhapuri in India, Sami in Finland, and Ju|’hoansi in Namibia), the biomechanics of the human foot, and advanced technology for 3D measur ing and printing. The depth and seriousness of the exploration in each field results in a richness of data and information which has only just started to yield its first outcomes.

— Christine De BaanMaybe for you people from overseas, our footwear looks unique. For us it is what our elders, our ances­tors were making. Today, for us, now that we have access to skins again, it seems we have got some­thing back that we thought was in the past and lost.

— !IU KuntaIn this new book presenting cobblers from India, Finland, Belgium, the UK, and Namibia, Els Roelandt and Catherine Willems present a refreshing and much­needed vision on anthropology, craftmanship, and design, clearly depicting the integrated roles of artisans, scientists, and industry partners.

— Rik Pinxten