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Rainer Tröndle
Briefe von Else und Christian Spellmeyer aus !Gochas und Gibeon,
Deutsch-Südwestafrika, 1899–1913

Bochum, Welwitschia, 2023

• Language: German
• 343 pages
• Paperback
• Print: 978-3-939886-12-9
• EUR: 29.80

Die Briefe von Else und Christian Spellmeyer an ihre Familie in Deutschland vermitteln ein Verständnis für das Alltagsleben einer deutsch-südwestafrikanischen Missionarsfamilie zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts. Sie sind eine herausragende Quelle für eine bislang noch kaum thematisierte Alltagsgeschichte der Kolonie.

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Anette Hoffmann
Listening to Colonial History:
Echoes of Coercive Knowledge Production in Historical Sound Recordings from Southern Africa

Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2023

• Language: English
• 171 pages
• Paperback
• Print: 978-3-906927-39-8
• CHF: 35.00

European archives hold historical voice recordings that were produced by linguists, ethnologists and musicologists during colonial rule in African countries. While these recordings reverberate with the poly-phonic echoes of colonial knowledge production, to date, acoustic collections have rarely been con-sulted as sources of colonial history. In this book Anette Hoffmann engages with a Southern African audio-visual collection, which is located in five different institutions across Vienna, Austria. Several recordings collected by the anthropologist Rudolf Pöch in August 1908 have been retranslated for this book. These translations provide new insights into Pöch's collecting expedition to the Kalahari. Pöch's narrative of his heroic journey is called into question by the Naro speakers' comments, which address colonial violence and criticise the research practices of the anthropologist. By attending to the spoken texts on the recordings and reconnecting them to photographs, ethnographic objects, archival documentation and Pöch's travelogue, Hoffmann offers a different reading of this research trip into a war zone.

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Tichaona Mazarire
Exploring Economic Reintegration in Namibia:
Individual Trajectories of PLAN Ex-Fighters and SWAPO Exiles, 1989-2018

Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2023

• Language: English
• 156 pages
• Paperback
• Print: 978-3-906927-33-6
• CHF: 32.00

Research into the history of Christian missions in the context of colonialism has focused primarily on missions as institutions and on the ways in which people were integrated into the economic, political and ideological spheres of imperial powers. Reduced to an experience occurring within a person, faith was deemed unapproachable by scientific methods. This has, in effect, constituted a silence regarding the everyday experience of religiosity amongst those drawn to Christianity. Ethnography of Faith is a detailed study of the ways in which people engage with and experience the religious in order to recognise and understand this suppressed voice of religiosity. In her analysis of the Lutheran church in the Soutpansberg of early twentieth century South Africa, Caroline Jeannerat listens closely to how people describe their own faith and that of others in the archive: in accounts of work done, in texts written for mission publications, in songs composed for church services, in letters and newspaper articles and in oral memories. A careful reading of this archive - for breaks, for misunderstandings and oppositions, for sentiments of agreement, praise, compatibility and claims of shared experiences - identifies negotiations of meaning which give indications of conceptualisations of faith that stand in distinction to those of the missionaries and their expectations.

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Caroline Jeannerat
An Ethnography of Faith.
Personal Conceptions of Religiosity in the Soutpansberg, South Africa, in the Early 20th Century

Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2023

• Language: English
• 206 pages
• Paperback
• Print: 978-3-906927-37-4
• CHF: 32.00

Research into the history of Christian missions in the context of colonialism has focused primarily on missions as institutions and on the ways in which people were integrated into the economic, political and ideological spheres of imperial powers. Reduced to an experience occurring within a person, faith was deemed unapproachable by scientific methods. This has, in effect, constituted a silence regarding the everyday experience of religiosity amongst those drawn to Christianity. Ethnography of Faith is a detailed study of the ways in which people engage with and experience the religious in order to recognise and understand this suppressed voice of religiosity. In her analysis of the Lutheran church in the Soutpansberg of early twentieth century South Africa, Caroline Jeannerat listens closely to how people describe their own faith and that of others in the archive: in accounts of work done, in texts written for mission publications, in songs composed for church services, in letters and newspaper articles and in oral memories. A careful reading of this archive - for breaks, for misunderstandings and oppositions, for sentiments of agreement, praise, compatibility and claims of shared experiences - identifies negotiations of meaning which give indications of conceptualisations of faith that stand in distinction to those of the missionaries and their expectations.

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Hans-Martin Milk

God's Feet or the Mission's Pack Donkey:
Evangelists of Namibia

Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2022

• Language: English
• 401 pages
• Paperback
• Print: 978-3-906927-35-0
• CHF: 30.00

The title of this book originates from the self-description of Namibian Evangelists in their own words. African evangelists of the Rhenish Mission Society (RMS) played a crucial but mostly overlooked role in shaping the spiritual and social networks that transformed indigenous communities from the early nineteenth century. The author draws from a wide range of German, Namibian and South African archival sources that have been supplemented with a large number of interviews, to explore the history of the indigenous evangelists of the RMS. African supporters were often the first heralds of the new religion at remote villages and cattle posts before the white strangers made an appearance. The Namibian evangelists' familiarity with the traditional culture and the local vernacular endowed them with a credibility that many of the European newcomers found difficult to acquire. By interweaving mission and church history between 1820 and 1990 with a biographical approach, the author brings a hidden chapter in Namibian history to life.

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Adam A. Blackler
An Imperial Homeland
Forging German Identity in Southwest Africa

University Park, Pennsylvania, Penn State University Press, 2022

• Language: English
• 292 pages
• Hardcover
• Print: 978-0-271-09298-0
• USD 114.95

At the turn of the twentieth century, depictions of the colonized world were prevalent throughout the German metropole. Tobacco advertisements catered to the erotic gaze of imperial enthusiasts with images of Ovaherero girls, and youth magazines allowed children to escape into “exotic domains” where their imaginations could wander freely. While racist beliefs framed such narratives, the abundance of colonial imaginaries nevertheless compelled German citizens and settlers to contemplate the world beyond Europe as a part of their daily lives. An Imperial Homeland reorients our understanding of the relationship between imperial Germany and its empire in Southwest Africa (present-day Namibia). Colonialism had an especially significant effect on shared interpretations of the Heimat (home/homeland) ideal, a historically elusive perception that conveyed among Germans a sense of place through national peculiarities and local landmarks. Focusing on colonial encounters that took place between 1842 and 1915, Adam A. Blackler reveals how Africans confronted foreign rule and altered German national identity. As Blackler shows, once the façade of imperial fantasy gave way to colonial reality, German metropolitans and white settlers increasingly sought to fortify their presence in Africa using juridical and physical acts of violence, culminating in the first genocide of the twentieth century.

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Job Shipululo Amupanda
Diamond Warriors in Colonial Namibia.
Diamond Smuggling, Migrant Workers and Development in Owamboland

Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2022

• Language: English
• 218 pages
• Paperback
• Print: 978-3-906927-45-9
• CHF 32.00

Diamond Warriors in Colonial Namibia enters into unchartered scholarly territory of illegal diamond smuggling at the largest diamond mining company in colonial Namibia—De Beers’ Consolidated Diamond Mines of South West Africa (CDM). It details the underground activities of the natives (migrant workers) employed by the CDM and how these illicit activities accounted for rapid development in Owamboland. Beyond this account, the book takes on the deterministic ‘natural resource curse’ theory that equates natural resource endowments to a curse resulting in underdevelopment and sometimes conflict. It is argued and proven herein, from a decolonial standpoint, that such an approach is an oversimplification of the political economy of natural resources in Africa in general and Namibia in particular. The text also provides a contextual account of the contract labour system and details the symbiotic relationship between CDM and the colonial state before highlighting the remaining unanswered questions and areas of further research.

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Yves Schmitz
Illegaler Waffenhandel in imperialen Grenzregionen.
Randfiguren im südlichen Afrika und Nordamerika im späten 19. Jahrhundert

Köln, Böhlau, 2022

• Language: German
• 359 pages
• Hardcover
• Print: 978-3-412-52573-6
• EUR 80.00

Der systematische Vergleich zweier Grenzregionen im südlichen Afrika bzw. in Nordamerika in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts leistet mit Analysen zu Funktionsmechanismen imperialer Staatsbildung sowie zum interkulturellen Zusammenleben einen Beitrag zur Imperialgeschichte. Bei diesem dezentralen, peripheren Ansatz wird die besondere Prägung von Akteuren und Strukturen durch den spezifischen politischen Raum, der imperialen Grenzregion, deutlich. Politische und kulturelle Aspekte des illegalen Waffenhandels und seiner Akteure stehen im Vordergrund. Beide stellten sowohl ein stabilisierendes als auch ein destabilisierendes Element in der staatlichen Durchdringung der imperialen Grenzregion dar, abhängig von den Interessen und dem Vorgehen der beteiligten Akteure, welche von der lokalen politischen und wirtschaftlichen Situation beeinflusst waren.

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Andreas Eckl
„Viel Pardon wird nicht gegeben werden“
Briefe von Erich Freiherr von Woellwarth-Lauterburg aus Südwestafrika 1900 – 1904

Bochum, Welwitschia, 2022

• Language: German
• 142 pages
• 11 Illustrations
• Paperback
• Print: 978-3-939886-11-2
• EUR 19.80

The letters by Erich von Woellwarth during the years 1900 and 1904 provide a striking insight into the colonial life of a German officer and the development of the colony up to the outbreak of the Herero War in 1904. Woellwarth took part in the “Siegeszug” of the Company Franke and died on February 11, 1904 as a result of an injury sustained during the relief of Omaruru alongside Victor Franke.

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Sarala Krishnamurthy, Nelson Mlambo and Helen Vale (eds.)
Writing Namibia - Coming of Age

Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2022

• Language: English
• 369 pages
• Paperback
• Print: 978-3-906927-41-1
• CHF 35.00

A rich collection of captivating and remarkable chapters, Writing Namibia Coming of Age presents research of senior academics as well as emerging scholars from Namibia. The book includes wide ranging topics in literature written in English and other Namibian languages, such as German, Afrikaans and Oshiwambo. Almost thirty years after independence, Namibia literature has come of age with new writers experimenting with different genres and varied aspects of literature. As an aesthetic object and social phenomenon, Namibian literature still fulfils the function of social conscience and as new writers emerge, there is ample demonstration that, pluri-vocal as they are, Namibian literary texts relate in a complex manner to the socio-historical trends shaping the country. The Namibian literary-critical tradition continues to paint some versions of Namibia and what we find in this new and highly welcome volume is a canvas of rich voices and perspectives that demonstrate an intricate diversity in terms of culture, language, and themes.

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Henning Melber / Kristin Platt (Hrsg.)
Koloniale Vergangenheit - postkoloniale Zukunft? 
Die Deutsch-Namibischen Beziehungen neu denken

Frankfurt a.M., Brandes & Apsel, 2022

• Language: German
• 252 pages, illustrations
• Paperback
• Print: 978-3-95558-321-7
• EUR 29.90

Mitte Mai 2021 wurde von den Sonderbeauftragten Deutschlands und Namibias als Ergebnis von neun Verhandlungsrunden seit Ende 2015 ein »Versöhnungsabkommen« paraphiert. Als bislang einzigartigen Schritt einer ehemaligen Kolonialmacht erkennt dieses Abkommen den in Südwestafrika verübten Völkermord politisch und moralisch an. Die vereinbarte »Geste der Anerkennung« wird seither in beiden Ländern kon­trovers diskutiert. Vor diesem Hintergrund stellt dieser Band die verschiedenen Perspektiven vor und lässt dabei unterschiedliche Stimmen aus Politik, Zivilgesellschaft und Kultur in Deutschland und die Sicht der Betroffenen in Namibia zu Wort kommen. Damit soll die Bandbreite der Meinungen und Versuche zur Bearbeitung der kolonialen Hinterlassenschaften am Beispiel des deutsch-namibischen Beziehungsgeflechts, aber auch im Umgang mit der Erinnerung an Massengewalt und ­Genozid in der Geschichte insgesamt dokumentiert werden.

Mit Beiträgen von Tom K. Alweendo, Rakkel Andreas, Julia Böcker, Medardus Brehl, Sevim Dagdelen, Albert Gouaffo, Dag Henrichsen, Naita Hishoono, Dominic Johnson, Uazuvara Katjivena, Horst Kleinschmidt, Adetoun Küppers-Adebisi, Michael Küppers-Adebisi, Carola Lentz, Henning Melber, Stephan Mühr, Jephta Nghuherimo, Kristin Platt, Ruprecht Polenz, Sylvia Schlettwein, Calle Schlettwein, Bernadus Swartbooi, Uwe Timm, McHenry Venaani, Erika von Wietersheim, Olaf Zimmermann.

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Robert J. Gordon
Ethnologists in Camouflage:
Introducing Apartheid to Namibia

Windhoek, University of Namibia Press, 2022

• Language: English
• 202 pages, index
• Paperback
• NAM 250.00

From the early fifties, South Africa used South West Africa/Namibia as a testing ground to promote Apartheid ideology and to devise methods of countering insurgency. In these exercises a number of experts, known as ethnologists, played an important role. Linked to the government and the military they carried out research  among specific ethnic groups, describing their physical characteristics, material culture, language and beliefs. Their work was used to legitimate Bantustan policy by emphasizing unbridgeable differences between people to make a national liberation movement impossible. Gordon presents fresh evidence on crucial questions which have gone unanswered over decades. This book undermines ivory towers and raises wider moral questions concerning the role of doubt in expertise and in debunking conspiracy theories.

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Andreas Eckl / Maria Fisch
Frederick J. Green: Narrative of an Expedition to the North-West of Lake Ngami, extending to the capital of Debabe’s Territory, via Souka River, hithero an unexplored portion of Africa

Bochum, Welwitschia, 2022

• Language: Englisch
• Introduction by Maria Fisch in German and English
• 103 pages
• Paperback
• Print: 978-3-939886-09-9
• EUR 17.80

Frederick Greens’ Narrative is the only complete publication so far about his travels from May 1855 to February 1856. Only J. Chapman included the section about the sojourn with Fumu Diyeve verbatim in his own publication (1868, Vol. I: 307-316). Mr. Hall, who edited and published the text in the Eastern Province Monthly Magazine in 1857, titled it Narrative. However, it seems that the text mainly consists of Green’s diary entries. Green’s Narrative is not a simple collection of a hunter’s adventures like most of the content of many books from this era. Green was not only courageous and perseverant, he was also keenly observant and he provides unique insights into life in the western Ngamiland and the right bank of the Kavango, before European influence brought fundamental changes there. In addition, Green’s Narrative provides us with new insights into political and economic conditions in the region. We learn that the subjugation of the indigenous peoples did not go beyond Gomare and that north of Gomare there was a very big settlement of the Kgalagadi who were well supplied with agricultural products. Just a few miles further north began a no man’s land, which at the time was not controlled by either the Tawana chief or Fumu Diyeve. This no man’s land extended from today’s Gomare to Shipupao. The area was predominantly populated by Khoesan and especially Mbukushu refugees, living in small closed settlements or as non-sedentary hunters. They had left their homeland because their children and young people were in danger of being sold to Angolan slave traders by the royal family. Green also describes the widespread use of a range of European goods such as rifles of Portuguese design. This indicates that Mbali traders from the west coast of Angola made their way to the Kavango ethnic groups earlier than to the Kololo and Luyi. They made the long journey every two to three years, following the courses of the Kavango and Kwito Rivers. In exchange for their, in many cases, inferior goods, they mainly bought ivory, ostrich feathers and slaves. Slaves were not only the most valuable article of trade, they were also needed to drag the ivory traded over 2000 km to the coast.

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Wilhelm u. Emilie Eich / A. Eckl (ed.)
Briefe und Berichte von Wilhelm und Emilie Eich,
Missionsstation Otjozondjupa / Waterberg, Deutsch-Südwestafrika, 1889 – 1899

Bochum, Welwitschia, 2022

• Introduced and transcribed by Rainer Tröndle
• Quellen zur Kolonialgeschichte, Vol. 7
• Language: German
• 177 pages
• Paperback
• Print: 978-3-939886-10-5
• EUR : 22.80 

The letters and reports from Wilhelm and Emilie Eich to the mission leadership offer a longitudinal view into the history of the South West Africa. They depict the final phase of the Herero's land conquest, which ended with the terrible years 1896-1900, when natural disasters, human and animal plagues claimed tens of thousands of victims among the population 

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Fabian Lehmann
Postkoloniale Gegenbilder. Künstlerische Reflexionen des Erinnerns an den deutschen Kolonialismus in Namibia

Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2021

• Language: German
• 463 pages, illustrations, index
• Paperback
• Print: 978-3-906927-27-5
• eISBN: 978-3-906927-28-2
• CHF 32.00

Die deutsche Kolonialzeit in Namibia war lange Zeit in der bildenden Kunst Namibias kein Thema. Erst vor wenigen Jahren begann sich dies zu ändern. Das Interesse einiger weniger Künstler*innen sowie programmatische Ausstellungen an der National Art Gallery in Windhoek hatten den Weg dafür bereitet. Die koloniale Landnahme, der namibische Widerstand sowie der Genozid sind mittlerweile etablierte Topoi in der Kunstwelt Namibias. „Postkoloniale Gegenbilder“ zeigt eine Auswahl zeitgenössischer künstlerischer Arbeiten aus verschiedenen Disziplinen – von der Druckgrafik bis zur Videokunst und von der Performance bis zur Installation–, die das Erinnern und Vergessen der deutschen Kolonialzeit im heutigen Namibia thematisieren. Das Ergebnis ist die erste umfassende kunstwissenschaftliche Forschungsarbeit zur künstlerischen Auseinandersetzung mit der deutsch-namibischen Geschichte.

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Andreas Eckl
Briefe und Berichte von Wilhelm Schaar
Missionar in Okombahe,
Deutsch-Südwestafrika, 1890 – 1900

Bochum, Welwitschia, 2021

• Introduced and transcribed by Rainer Tröndle
• Quellen zur Kolonialgeschichte, Vol. 3
• Language: German
• 172 pages
• Paperback
• Print: 978-3-939886-05-1
• EUR : 22.80 

Letters and reports to the Rhenish Mission Society written by missonary Wilhlem Schaar who from 1890 onwards until his dead in 1900 was head of Okombahe Mission in German South West Africa. 

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Matthias Häussler
The Herero Genocide: War, Emotion, and Extreme Violence in Colonial Namibia

New York, Berghahn, 2021

• Translated from the German by Elizabeth Janik
• Language: English
• 306 pages, bibliog., index
• Paperback
• Print: 978-1-80073-023-6
• eISBN 978-1-80073-024-3
• USD: 179.00 / £ 132.00 

Drawing on previously inaccessible and overlooked archival sources, The Herero Genocideundertakes a groundbreaking investigation into the war between colonizer and colonized in what was formerly German South-West Africa and is today the nation of Namibia. In addition to its eye-opening depictions of the starvation, disease, mass captivity, and other atrocities suffered by the Herero, it reaches surprising conclusions about the nature of imperial dominion, showing how the colonial state’s genocidal posture arose from its own inherent weakness and military failures. The result is an indispensable account of a genocide that has been neglected for too long.

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John Kinahan
Namib: The archaeology of an African desert

Windhoek, UNAM Press, 2021

• Language: English
• 546 pages
• 88 b&w halftones, 19 line drawings, 38 maps, 30 diagrams
• Paperback
• Print: 978-99916-42-65-9
• ZAR/NAD: 300.00 

This is a story of human survival over the last one million years in the Namib Desert ― one of the most hostile
environments on Earth. The resilience and ingenuity of desert communities provides a vivid picture of our species’ response to climate change, and ancient strategies to counter ever-present risk. Dusty fragments of stone, pottery and bone tell a history of perpetual transition, of shifting and temporary states of balance. Namib digs beneath the usual evidence of archaeology to uncover a world of arcane rituals, of travelling rain-makers, of intricate social networks which maintained vital systems of negotiated access to scarce resources. This is more than a work of scientific research; it is a love-song to the desert and its people.

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Jack Boulton
Have Your Yellowcake and Eat It
Men, Relatedness and Intimacy in Swakopmund,
Namibia

Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2021

• Foreword by Steven Van Wolputte
• Language: English
• 214 pages, maps, illustrations
• Paperback
• Print: 978-3-906927-29-9
• PDF: 978-3-906927-30-5
• ZAR/NAD: 250.00 

Have Your Yellowcake and Eat It is a story of men, monsters and uranium in Swakopmund, a small coastal city in the west of Namibia. Founded by German settlers in the late nineteenth century, Swakopmund remains a popular holiday destination for Namibians and international visitors alike. How do young African men make their home in this peculiar town of pretty beaches and luxury hotels, a brutal colonial history and a large uranium mining industry? Are their close relations affected by global changes in the price of uranium? And how do we describe their life worlds which straddle many homes, neighbourhoods, and establishments – sometimes even existing beyond the limits of the post-colonial city? Employing a reflexive narrative and based on two year’s fieldwork, Jack Boulton explores the myriad ways in which intimacy develops and manifests for men in a city defined predominantly by racialised difference and local and global forces of inequality.

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Julia Rensing, Lorena Rizzo, Wanda Rutishausers (eds.)
Sites of Contestation. Encounters with the Ernst and Ruth Dammann Collection in the Archives of the Basler Afrika Bibliographie

Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2021

• Language: English
• 126 pages, illustrations
• Paperpack
• Print: 978-3-906927-31-2
• PDF: 978-3-906927-32-9
• ZAD/NAD: 160.00 

This book is a collection of essays written by emerging scholars at the University of Basel on the basis of their subjective encounters with a specific archival collection housed in the Basler Afrika Bibliographien in Basel. The Ernst and Ruth Dammann collection consists of around 8100 images, 750 audio recordings and numerous manuscripts, diaries and notes. The German couple conducted research on Namibian oral literatures and languages as they were spoken and performed across the country in the early 1950s. Based on in-depth engagement with the textual, visual and audio records assembled in this intricate collection, the authors of this book critically interrogated the implications of opening a colonial archive, exploring alternative ways of reading and understanding the historical material. As unique examples of close reading and listening, the essays propose creative ways of attending to the politics of race, gender, famine, ethnography, biography and fiction in colonial knowledge production. Content: 1. Sites of Contestation – Introduction (Julia Rensing & Wanda Rutishauser), 2. On Wide Open Plains – Traces of Resilience in Namibian Oral Sorytelling (Naemi Hüberli), 3. Worlds Apart? Biographies and Interventions
(Julia Rensing), 4. Alice in Dammann Land: A Curious Adventure (Natashia Collier), 5. Adelheid Mbuandjou: Fragments of Life Narratives (Wanda Rutishauser), 6. The Image-Text Event: Framing Famine in Namibia in 1953 – (Natalia Krzysztofek & Vishruti Shastri).

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Astrid Starck-Adler, Dag Henrichsen (eds.)
Lewis Nkosi. The Black Psychiatrist | Flying Home: Texts, Perspectives, Homage

Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2021

• Language: English
• xxiv, 444 pages, illustrations
• Hardcover
• Print: 978-3-906927-04-6
• PDF: 978-3-905758-95-5
• CHF 25.00 

This rich volume is dedicated to the astounding South African writer and literary critic Lewis Nkosi (1936–2010). In this book, Nkosi’s celebrated one-act play “The Black Psychiatrist” is published together with its unpublished sequel “Flying Home,” a play on the satirically fictionalized inauguration of Mandela as South African president. Critical appraisals, tributes and recollections by scholars and friends reflect on the beat of his writing and life. An ideal volume for those encountering Lewis Nkosi for the first time as well as for those already devoted to his work. Edited by Astrid Starck, a literary scholar, and Dag Henrichsen, a historian. “Much has happened to me that is worth narrating, worth celebrating, in spite of the regrets and sorrows of exile. My life began under Apartheid until I attained the age of 22, and then subsequently lived in many places and societies, in Central Africa, Britain, the United States, Poland, and during a brief sojourn, in France and, finally, in Switzerland.” (Lewis Nkosi in „Memoirs of a motherless child“).

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Romie Vonkie Nghitevelekwa
Securing land rights: Communal land reform in Namibia

Windhoek, University of Namibia Press, 2020

• Language: English
• xvi, 164 pages 
• Paperback
• ISBN 978-99916-42-62-8

Securing land rights takes up themes at the centre of socio-political debates throughout the African
continent. These relate to national struggles over access to land, land distribution, land rights and security of tenure. Land in much of rural Africa is communally held, a system that provides security of livelihood and a social safety net, but is not immune to appropriation by government or injustices such as the eviction of women from the land on the death of their husbands.  This book contextualises Namibia within these debates, highlighting the country’s stance in relation to communal land tenure reforms with a focus on the realities of people’s lives in north-central Namibia.
Leading questions centre on competing ways of ascribing value to land; mechanisms and monetisation of
access to land; commercialisation of land use, de-agrarianization and ongoing transformation underpinned
by economic and territorial restructuring. These processes have direct impacts on equity in access to land and land distribution, and engender competing visions of land rights. Communal land reform is an uneasy compromise between different processes and interests.

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Uazuvara Ewald Kapombo Katjivena
Mama Penee: Transcending the Genocide

Windhoek, University of Namibia Press, 2020

• Language: English
• xvi, 112 pages
• Illustrations
• Paperback
• ISBN 978-99916-42-51-2

Jahorora Petronella Inaavinuise, who came to be known as Mama Penee, was a young girl of eleven when her parents were shot in cold blood before her during the 1904 – 1908 genocidal war in Namibia. Waved away from the scene by a German soldier, she realised that it was her destiny to live. Finding water and food for herself and learning to avoid danger, she spent several months in hiding in what was then central German South West Africa. Courageous and self-sufficient, she learned lessons in wisdom, calm, and what is truly important in life, lessons which she later imparted to her grandchildren in ways both ingenious, frustrating and challenging. Her extraordinary personal qualities and influence shine from this story, told by one of her grandsons with the insight and understanding gained over a lifetime of reflecting on his grandmother. Also a gem of literature, this book is primarily an oral history, a family narrative preserving myth, stories and fundamental values to pass on to younger generations to guide them through life and help them make sense of the world. In the case of this Ovaherero family, the horror and trauma of the colonial war and genocide is balanced by Mama Penee’s memories of both good and evil on both sides, and her deep understanding and acceptance of human nature. Katjivena’s approach gives voice to previously silenced individuals and communities, and is especially valuable as a unique account of an Ovaherero woman’s witness to the genocide.

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Julia Augart, Rolf Parr (eds.)
Windhoek/Essen. Stadtwahrnehmung in Bild und Text

Berlin, Bachmann, 2020

• Language: German
• 72 pages 
• Numerous photographs
• Hardcover
• ISBN 978-3-96234-031-5
• EUR 20.00 

Der Blick auf Städte unterliegt stets dem konstruierenden Blick derjenigen, die sie wahrnehmen. Diese Überlegung war Ausgangspunkt für das Projekt »Stadtwahrnehmung Windhoek/Essen«: Studierende der University of Namibia und der Universität Duisburg-Essen erkundeten die jeweils andere Stadt mit der Fotokamera. Das Ergebnis sind Fotoserien und sie begleitende Texte zu Themen wie ›Schulen‹, ›Weite‹, ›Wasser in der Stadt‹, die der vorliegende Band präsentiert.

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Katerina Mildnerová
Namibian Czechs. History and identity of the Namibian children raised in Czechoslovakia

Wien, LIT, 2020

• Language: English
• 301 pages 
• Ethnologie / Anthropology, Vol. 73
• Paperback
• ISBN 978-3-643-91339-5
• EUR 39.90 

The book focuses on the history and identity of Namibian Czechs, originally a group of prominent child war refugees admitted by the Czechoslovak government in 1985 for education as an expression of international solidarity assistance to SWAPO liberation movement. The educational project with elements of social engineering was interrupted in 1991 due to political changes in both countries. The relocation of the children to Namibia had a dramatic impact on their future lives. Namibian Czechs never fully integrated into Namibian society, moreover they proudly proclaim their belonging to Czechness.

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Sebastian Justke
»Brückenbauen« gegen Apartheid? Auslandspfarrer in Südafrika und Namibia

Göttingen, Wallstein Verlag, 2020

• Language: German
• 496 pages, 17 illustrations 
• Hamburger Beiträge zur Sozial- und Zeitgeschichte, Vol. 59
• Harcover
• ISBN 978-3-8353-3640-7
• EUR 46.00 

Die evangelischen Kirchen in der Bundesrepublik waren direkt am Apartheidkonflikt in Südafrika und Namibia beteiligt. Diese Mitwirkung zeigte sich in der personellen und finanziellen Unterstützung deutschsprachiger Auslandsgemeinden durch die Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland. Eine Schlüsselrolle in diesem transnationalen Beziehungsgeflecht spielten westdeutsche Geistliche, die über das Kirchliche Außenamt als »Auslandspfarrer« in die Auslandsgemeinden entsandt wurden. Angesichts der seit den späten 1960er Jahren wachsenden internationalen Proteste gegen die Apartheid geriet diese Form der Unterstützung in die Kritik. Der Umgang mit der Apartheid wurde so zu einem Grundkonflikt des Auslandsdienstes westdeutscher Pfarrer in Südafrika und Namibia. Gestritten wurde um die Einheit der Kirche über »Rassen«-Grenzen hinweg, über Begegnungen zwischen »Schwarz« und »Weiß« und um das rechte Kirchen- und Glaubensverständnis. Sebastian Justke legt offen, wie der Konflikt Fragen nach der eigenen Lebensweise und Zugehörigkeit in der letzten offen rassistischen Gesellschaft des 20. Jahrhunderts berührte.

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Corinne Lüthy, Reto Ulrich, Antonio Uribe (eds.)
KABOOM! Of Stereotypes and Superheroes - African Comics on Africa.

Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien / Frankfurt a.M., Brandes & Apsel, 2020

• Language: English / German
• 156 pages, numerous illustrations
• Paperback
• Print: 978-3-906927-14-5 / 978-3-95558-275-3
• EUR 29.90 

We all know the colonial and stereotypical images of the African continent and of the people living there. Especially older comics such as The Adventures of Tintin or Mickey Mouse have taken up the image of the “untamed” continent with its “wild” inhabitants. Moreover, modern superhero comics mirror the western view of Africa. What about the African point of view, though? The true African comic? The editors of this catalogue present a wide range of African comics: superhero and underground comics as well as comics with propaganda content or an educational focus.

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Michaela Fink and Reimer Gronemeyer
Namibias Kinder. Lebensbedingungen und Lebenskräfte in der Krisengesellschaft

Bielefeld, transcript, 2020

• Language: German
• 214 pages
• Paperback
• ISBN 978-3-8376-5254-3
• EUR 35.00 

Die extremen Unterschiede zwischen Arm und Reich gehen in Namibia mit einer Verschlechterung der Lebenslage vieler Kinder einher, die schutz- und obdachlos in großer Armut leben. Wie sieht der Alltag dieser Kinder im ländlichen Norden und in den urbanen Blechhütten-Siedlungen Windhoeks aus? Michaela Fink und Reimer Gronemeyer haben sich auf die Suche gemacht und mit betroffenen Kindern und den sie unterstützenden zivilgesellschaftlichen Initiativen in Namibia gesprochen. Die berührenden, bewegenden aber auch spannenden Erzählungen zeigen auf, dass bei vielen Kindern trotz widrigster Lebensumstände bemerkenswerte Lebenskräfte wirken und sie Wege finden, dieses Leben zu meistern.

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Julia Runge
Shebeen Queens. Begegnungen in Namibias Townships : close encounters in Namibian townships

Hamburg, Palmato Publishing, 2020

• With an essay from Fabian Sander
• Language: German / English
• 104 pages
• Numerous photographs
• Hardcover
• Print: ISBN 978-3-946205-33-3
• EUR 29.99 

Julia Runge erzählt mit ihren Bildern die Geschichten starker Frauen, die in den Townships in Namibia zu Königinnen kleiner Reiche geworden sind, zu selbstbestimmten Unternehmerinnen, die in einer weitestgehend patriarchalisch geprägten Gesellschaft als wichtige Stützen der Gemeinschaft fungieren. Die Fotografin Julia Runge, vielen schon von ihrem Projekt „Basterland“ bekannt, hat wieder eine wenig beachtete Gruppe der namibischen Gesellschaft in den Mittelpunkt ihrer künstlerischen Arbeit gestellt. In Shebeen Queens porträtiert sie starke Frauen, die in den Townships Namibias eine Bar, eine sogenannte Shebeen betreiben. Während die negativen Auswirkungen von Alkohol in den Armutsvierteln oft thematisiert werden, bleibt in der Regel unberücksichtigt, welch wichtige soziale Funktion die Shebeens als Treffpunkt haben und wie sie es Frauen ermöglichen, in schwierigsten Verhältnissen mit ihre oft großen Familien zu ernähren. Julia Runge ist diesen Frauen auf Augenhöhe begegnet, voller Respekt für ihren Mut und ihre Würde, und hat ihr Vertrauen gewonnen. So entstanden fast intim anmutende Porträts, die man nicht vergisst.

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Alan Cohen, Tanja Hammel and Jasmin Rindlisbacher (eds.)
Mary Elizabeth Barber: Growing Wild. The Correspondence of a Pioneering Woman Naturalist from the Cape

Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2020

• Language: English
• xxx, 303 pages, illustrations
• Paperback
• Print: 978-3-906927-04-6
• CHF 25.00 

Mary Elizabeth Barber (1818–1899), born in Britain, arrived in the Cape Colony in 1820 where she spent the rest of her life as a rolling stone, as she lived in and near Grahamstown, the diamond and gold fields, Pietermaritzburg, Malvern near Durban and on various farms in the eastern part of the Cape Colony. She has been perceived as ‘the most advanced woman of her time’, yet her legacy has attracted relatively little attention. She was the first woman ornithologist in South Africa, one of the first who propagated Darwin’s theory of evolution, an early archaeologist, keen botanist and interested lepidopterist. In her scientific writing, she propagated a new gender order; positioned herself as a feminist avant la lettre without relying on difference models and at the same time made use of genuinely racist argumentation. This is the first publication of her edited scientific correspondence. The letters — transcribed by Alan Cohen, who has written a number of biographical articles on Barber and her brothers — are primarily addressed to the entomologist Roland Trimen, the curator of the South African Museum in Cape Town. Today, the letters are housed at the Royal Entomological Society in St Albans.

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Kletus Muhena Likuwa
Voices from the Kavango. A Study of the Contract Labour System in Namibia, 1925-1972

Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2020

• Language: English
• xii, 217 pages, illustrations, index
• BNSS, Vol. 22
• Paperback
• Print: 978-3-906927-19-0
• CHF 22.00 

Voices from the Kavango explores the contribution that the life histories and the voices of the contract labourers make to our understanding of the contract labour system in Namibia. In particular it asks: is it possible to view the migration of the Kavango labourers as a progressive step, or does the paradigm of exploitation and suppression remain the dominant one? The study highlights contract labourers engaging in a defeating activity and their disappointment with the little rewards which were non-lasting solutions to their problems. The realization of their entrapment under the contract system and the eventual frustrations led to the political mobilization for independence by SWAPO.

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Thorsten Kern
West Germany and Namibia’s Path to Independence, 1969–1990
Foreign Policy and Rivalry with East Germany

Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2020

• Foreword by Chris Saunders
• Language: English
• xiv, 272 pages, index
• BNSS, Vol. 21
• Paperback
• Print: 978-3-906927-23-7
• CHF 32.00 

Namibia's main liberation movement, the South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO), relied heavily on outside support for its armed struggle against South Africa's occupation of what it called South West Africa. While East Germany's solidarity with Namibia's struggle for national self-determination has received attention, little research has been done on West Germany's policy towards Namibia, which must be seen against the backdrop of inter-German rivalry. The impact of the wider realities of the Cold War on Namibia's rocky path to independence leaves ample room for research and new interpretations. In West Germany and Namibia's Path to Independence, 1969-1990: Foreign Policy and Rivalry with East Germany, Thorsten Kern shows that German division played a vital role in West Germany's position towards Namibia during the Cold War. West German foreign policy towards Namibia, at the height of the Namibian liberation struggle, is investigated and discussed against the backdrop of rivalry with East Germany. The two states' deeply diverging policies, characterised in this context by competition for infuence over SWAPO, were strongly affected by the Cold War rivalry between the capitalist West and the communist East. Yet ultimately the dynamics of rapprochement helped to bring about Namibia's independence.

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Christopher Hope
Developmentalism, Dependency, and the State: Industrial Development and Economic Change in Namibia since 1900

Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2020

• Language: English
• ix, 186 pages, index
• Paperback
• Print: 978-3-906927-21-3
• CHF 32.00 

Why does Namibia's economy look the way it does today? Was the reliance on raw materials for exports and on the service sector for employment an inevitability? And for what reasons has the manufacturing sector - the vehicle for economic development for many now-high income countries throughout the 19th and 20th centuries - seen its growth held back? With these questions in mind, this book offers an extensive analysis of industrial development and economic change in Namibia since 1900, exploring their causes, trajectory, vicissitudes, context, and politics. Its focus is particularly on the motivations behind the economic decisions of the state, arguing that power relations - both internationally and domestically - have held firm a status quo that has resisted efforts towards profound economic change. This work is the first in-depth economic study covering both the colonial and independence eras of Namibia's history and provides the first history of the country's manufacturing sector.

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Christoph Hagebeucker
Exotik im Dritten Reich. Das Koloniale in populären Medien und die Mobilisierung der Deutschen

Hamburg, Dr. Kovac, 2019

• Language: German
• 496 pages
• Studien zur Zeitgeschichte, Vol. 113
• Paperback
• Print: ISBN 978-3-339-11280-4
• EUR 129.80 

Diese Studie untersucht die Repräsentation des deutschen Kolonialismus in Afrika in ausgewählten populären Medienformaten der Jahre 1933 bis 1945. Die als exotisch geltenden Kolonien tauchten in großer thematischer Bandbreite in den zahlreich erschienenen Spiel- und Kulturfilmen, in Sammelbildern sowie in den entsprechenden Alben, in Groschenromanheften und in Zeitschriften auf. Im Mittelpunkt dieser Untersuchung steht dabei die Frage, mit welchen Inhalten und Botschaften das Kolonialthema in den Jahren der nationalsozialistischen Herrschaft im populärkulturellen Diskurs auf den unterschiedlichen Argumentations- und Repräsentationsebenen aufgegriffen wurde. Als ein zentrales Motiv der Kolonialpropaganda ohne gleichzeitigen Kolonialbesitz wird das Potential des Kolonialthemas herausgearbeitet, Teile der deutschen Bevölkerung für das nationalsozialistische Regime zu mobilisieren.

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Renzo Baas
Fictioning Namibia as a Space of Desire. An Excursion into the Literary Space of Namibia During Colonialism, Apartheid and the Liberation Struggle

Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2019

• Language: English
• viii, 286 pages, index
• Basel Southern African Studies, Vol. 12
• Paperback
• Print: 978-3-906927-08-4
• CHF 32.00 

Modern-day Namibian history has largely been shaped by three major eras: German colonial rule, South African apartheid occupation, and the Liberation Struggle. It was, however, not only military conquest that laid the cornerstone for the colony, but also how the colony was imagined, the ‘dream’ of this colony. As a tool of discursive worldmaking, literature has played a major role in providing a framework in which to ‘dream’ Namibia, first from outside its borders, and then from within. Through the production of myths around whiteness, German and South African authors designed a literary space in which control, destruction, and the dehumanisation
of African peoples are understood as a natural order, one that is dictated by history and its linear continuation. These European texts are offset by Namibia’s first novel by an African, offering a counter-narrative to the colonial invention that was (German) South West Africa.

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Erika von Wietersheim
Guten Morgen Namibia. Eine Farm, eine Schule und unser Weg von der Apartheid zur Unabhängigkeit

Hamburg, Palmato Publishing, 2019

• Language: German / English version available as e-book
• 3676 pages, map
• Hardcover
• Print: ISBN 978-3-946205-30-2
• EUR 24.99 

In dieser biografischen Erzählung nimmt uns Erika von Wietersheim mit in die Zeit von 1976 bis zur Verabschiedung der ersten Verfassung für das unabhängige Namibia am 21. März 1990. Es ist die Geschichte einer zweifachen Emanzipation: Die junge, im Studium in Südafrika liberal geprägte Namibierin kommt auf die Farm ihrer Schwiegereltern in ein traditionelles, von der Apartheid bestimmtes Gefüge. Was kann sie tun, um ihren Teil beizutragen zu einem gerechteren Miteinander der Völker und zu besseren Zukunftsperspektiven für die durch Kolonialisation und Apartheid unterdrückten Menschen? Bildung heißt ihre Antwort, und so baut sie – zunächst ohne jede Unterstützung – eine Farmschule auf und begibt sich damit auf einen Weg, der sie mit vielen zentralen Personen der namibischen Unabhängigkeitsbewegung zusammenführt. Die Autorin verwebt kunstvoll Beschreibungen ihres Lebens auf der Farm mit politischen Hintergründen und Bewegungen, gibt uns Einblicke in die Kultur der dort ansässigen Volksgruppe der Nama, lässt uns die Höhen und Tiefen des Farmalltags erleben und zeigt, dass es auch in der weißen namibischen Bevölkerung die Bestrebungen nach einer gerechten und selbstbestimmten Gesellschaft gab.

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Tycho van der Hoog
Breweries, Politics and Identity: The History Behind Namibia’s Beer

Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2019

• Foreword by Anne Mager
• Language: English
• ix, 118 pages, illustrations
• Paperback
• Print: 978-3-906927-12-1
• CHF 25.00 

Namibian beer is celebrated as an inextricable part of Namibian nationalism, both within domestic borders and  across global markets. But for decades on end, the same brew was not available to the black population as a consequence of colonial politics. This book aims to explain how a European style beer has been transformed from an icon of white settlers into a symbol of the independent Namibian nation. The unusual focus on beer offers valuable insight into the role of companies in identity formation and thus highlights an understudied aspect of Namibian history, namely business–state relations.

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Hans-Martin Milk
"... der im Sturm steht wie ein Kameldornbaum". Die Evangelisten Namibias und ihre Geschichte

Köln, Rüdiger Köppe, 2019

• Language: German
• ix, 488 pages, illustrations, index
• InterCultura, Vol. 11
• Hardcover
• Print: ISBN 978-3-89645-452-2
• EUR 44.80 

Dieses Buch stellt die Einzelschicksale von namibischen Evangelisten dar, untersucht ihre Alltagsstrategien und beschreibt, wie sie in den verschiedenen Geschichtsphasen Namibias zwischen 1820 und 1990 gehandelt haben. Es ist Anliegen dieses Buches, den Evangelisten Namibias ein Profil zu geben, ihre spannenden Lebensskizzen nachzuzeichnen und damit den Blick auf die Geschichte Namibias zu differenzieren. Es ist die Geschichte der Evangelisten, die in besonderer Weise die Entstehung einer der bedeutenden protestantischen Kirchen Namibias geprägt haben. Die Geschichte dieser Kirche, der Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Republic of Namibia (ELCIN), ist die Geschichte der Evangelisten. Mit den Biografien soll eine neue Perspektive auf die Entstehungsgeschichte erschlossen werden.

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Jan Kwalath
Der Hamburger Hafen und der deutsche Kolonialkrieg in Namibia 1904–1907. Die Inszenierung kolonialer Gewalt im Baakenhafen

München, Allitera Verlag, 2019

• Language: German
• 128 pages, illustrations, map
• Hamburger postkoloniale Studien, Vol. 5
• Paperback
• Print: ISBN 978-3-96233-111-5
• EUR 18.90 

Der Hamburger Baakenhafen und besonders der Petersenkai wurden durch die deutschen Truppentransporte zu zentralen Orten für die Kolonialgeschichte. Im Baakenhafen wurde nicht nur Handel mit vielen Kolonien – deutschen und nicht-deutschen – getrieben: Auch die koloniale Ordnung zwischen Kolonisierten und Kolonisatoren wurde hier inszeniert. Dies geschah sehr verdichtet während des Kolonialkriegs in Deutsch-Südwest-Afrika, für den nahezu alle Truppentransporte zum Kriegsschauplatz über dieses Hafenbecken gingen und viele davon auch hier wieder ankamen. In welcher Art und Weise wurde Kolonialismus im Baakenhafen während des deutschen Kolonialkriegs in DSWA inszeniert? Um auf diese Frage Antwort zu geben, werden im vorliegenden Band der »Hamburger postkolonialen Studien« die Ereignisse im Baakenhafen dargestellt und auf ihren Inszenierungscharakter hin untersucht. Dabei wird der Verlauf der Darstellungen thematisiert, mögliche beteiligte Akteur*innen – wie zuständige Militärbehörden, der Senat der Stadt Hamburg, die Reedereien, die Soldaten und deren Angehörige sowie die Bewohner*innen der Stadt Hamburg – identifiziert und deren jeweilige Rollen bei den Ereignissen in die Reflexionen einbezogen.

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Judith Fait
Kupfer, Kolonialismus, Kapital. Das Bergwerk Tsumeb, Namibia

Hamburg, Diplomica Verlag, 2019

• Language: German
• 207 pages, 180 illustrations
• Paperback
• Print: ISBN 978-3-96146-712-9
• EUR 39.50 

In den bisherigen Arbeiten zum deutschen Kolonialismus wurde der Abbau von Mineralien als eher randständiger Aspekt thematisiert. Dabei stellten die Industrialisierung und der damit einhergehende Rohstoffbedarf im Fall der ersten deutschen Kolonie, dem heutigen Namibia, eine treibende Kraft dar. Die von der Kolonialindustrie geschaffenen Strukturen und Abhängigkeiten sind bis heute wirksam. Als exemplarisches Beispiel dient die Mine der Superlative in Tsumeb. Das Buch behandelt nach einem kurzen Abriss der Landesverhältnisse und der Entstehungsgeschichte des Erzvorkommens die Anfangsphase der Kolonisierung durch christliche Missionen, die Händler und Kupfergräber ins Land zogen. Die späteren Verflechtungen von Montanindustrie und Politik, die auch Wissenschaftler zu Handlangern der Ausbeutung kriegswichtiger Rohstoffe machten, warfen Milliardengewinne ab. Die in der Kolonie eingesetzten Technologien waren dabei meist das Modernste, was die zeitgenössische Technik zu bieten hatte. Abschließend wird dargelegt, mit welchen Mitteln uns das Vergessen dieses Teils der deutschen Geschichte leicht gemacht wurde. Ein besonderes Highlight sind die erstmals veröffentlichten historischen Fotografien.

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Julia Pauli
The Decline of Marriage in Namibia. Kinship and Social Class in a Rural Community

Bielefeld, transcript, 2019

• Language: English
• 296 pages
• Paperback
• ISBN 978-3-8376-4303-9
• EUR 44.90 

In Southern Africa, marriage used to be widespread and common. However, over the past decades marriage rates have declined significantly. Julia Pauli explores the meaning of marriage when only few marry. Although marriage rates have dropped sharply, the value of weddings and marriages has not. To marry has become an indicator of upper-class status that less affluent people aspire to. Using the appropriation of marriage by a rural Namibian elite as a case study, the book tells the entwined stories of class formation and marriage decline in post-apartheid Namibia.

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Richard A. Voeltz (ed.)
S. Garforth Pearsons's Diary for the Kaokoveldt Expedition, 1895 - 1896

Bochum, Welwitschia Verlag, 2019

• Language: English
• 51 pages
• Quellen zur Kolonialgeschichte, Vol. 2
• Paperback
• Print: ISBN 978-3-939886-04-4
• EUR 8.80

S. Garforth Pearson was was a mining engineer, and an employee of the South West Africa Company, Ltd., an Anglo-German mining and con­cessionary company founded in 1892 and operating in what was then the German colony of South West Africa. He kept a diary that gives an account of the northern part of the Kaokoveldt expedition that his company undertook in 1895–1896. His careful, and frequently arrogant, narrative presented here for the first time includes important information on ‘trekking’, the geography and wildlife of Namibia, gold mining frauds, white traders, the German colonial soldier, European towns, European-Boer, and European-African ‘race relations’ in the very young German colony of South West Africa. The African people are seen through the biased eyes of a nineteenth century Englishmen confident of his moral and cultural supremacy. Yet Pearson does provide fascinating glimpses into the cultures and individual lives of the people he encounters. How nice it would be to hear their side of the story, to have their reminiscences recorded. But at least we must be thankful for a chance to learn more about them albeit through the eyes and life of another.

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Theo Sundermeier
Lehren und Lernen in Afrika

Leipzig, Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2018

•  
• Language: German
• 212 pages, 15 illustrations
• Paperback
• Print: ISBN 978-3-374-05775-7
• EUR 28.00 

1971 erklärte der Internationale Gerichtshof das Südafrika übertragene Mandat über Namibia für völkerrechtswidrig. Das war der Kairos, den die beiden lutherischen Kirchen in Namibia wahrnahmen und in einem »offenen Brief« an den Premierminister von Südafrika die Menschenrechte einklagten und ein freies Namibia forderten. Dieser Brief wirkte wie ein Fanal in der Gemeinschaft der Lutherischen Kirchen weltweit. Wie es dazu kam und wie der »Offene Brief« entstand, schildert hier der letzte lebende Zeitzeuge. Ein zweiter Schwerpunkt des Buches schildert den Weg des Theologen Theo Sundermeier, der zum Lehren nach Namibia kam und zum Lernenden wurde. Mission beginnt nicht mit lehren oder predigen, sondern mit hören und nochmals hören und der Aufgabe, den anderen zu verstehen. Kernbegriffe von Sundermeiers universitären Lehrtätigkeit in Deutschland wurden hier geformt u.a. »Hermeneutik des Fremden«, »Konvivenz«, »primäre und sekundäre Religion«.
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