“Zula”, an IsiZulu word meaning “to wander about” or “to roam”, is frequently used among the Ju|’hoansi of north-eastern Namibia. The word is said to have been borrowed from tsotsis, “criminals” or “thugs”, who hustle for money in the nearest urban town to the protected region within which they live. For the Ju|’hoansi, to “zula” is not to engage in criminal or thuggish activities, but rather to do the general business of getting by, of searching for patronage in whatever form it may take, of “roaming in order to live”. Roaming is an activity that has long been associated with the Ju|’hoansi, perhaps best known as the !Kung “San” or “Bushmen” – the revered subjects of Marshall Sahlins’ “original affluent society”. It has also been the subject of extensive writing within the discipline on “hunter-gatherers” or so-called “egalitarian societies” more broadly. This writing sees “roaming” as a practice circumscribed by the assumption that those who have more than they can immediately use or consume will give in to the demands of roaming others without expecting repayment. In its contemporary guise, however, roaming necessitates encounters not with “real people”, like themselves, whom they expect will share without hesitation, or with ever-replenishing fauna and flora, but with those who “want to refuse you”, “want to ruin you”, or who “cannot be trusted” – including state institutions, entrepreneurs, development workers, and even fellow Ju|’hoansi. Rather than simply an extension of a longer history of roaming, these movements reflect broader shifts towards informality, precariousness, and rising inequality across southern Africa. They are also distinct, circumscribed by certain assumptions on what it means to be “good” and “fair”. This paper takes this nexus – between the values of egalitarianism and the contemporary social context – as a productive space within which to explore the way that people go about pursuing equality in the face of uncertainty and negotiating the moral ambivalence that emerges in the process.