The Genealogy of Pastoral Power: Ritualized Care and the Regulation of Gender Diversity in Botswana—A Systematic Review

Abstract

Botswana provides a setting in which to examine pastoral power. Customary authority, Christian institutions, public-health programmes, and state law have each helped to shape the social regulation of gender and sexuality. This systematic review brings together Botswana-specific scholarship on the ways care, counselling, scriptural interpretation, and institutional support affect lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, and other gender- and sexually diverse people. The review followed PRISMA 2020. Web of Science, Scopus, ScienceDirect, SpringerLink, and Google Scholar were searched from database inception to 15 May 2024, and a supplementary search of publisher sites, indexes, and citation networks was updated to 31 July 2026. Five independent sources met the eligibility criteria: one qualitative interview study, one field-informed country report, and three documentary, legal, church-historical, or biblical analyses. The CASP qualitative checklist and the JBI text-and-opinion checklist were used for design-appropriate appraisal. Across this small and varied literature, four patterns recurred: the moral authority assigned to scripture and culture; care that was conditional or incomplete; interaction among religious, health, legal, and civil-society institutions; and dialogical alternatives to exclusion. Evidence is strongest for public discourse, institutional positions, and reported counselling experiences; no included source directly observed a pastoral ritual. Religious care may offer belonging and support, but it may also carry expectations of conformity. Broader claims will require ethnographic and participatory research developed with, and responsive to, LGBTIQ+ Batswana.