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This article presents a set of arguments about decolonisation debates and practices in the South African academy, and particularly efforts by anthropologists based at South African universities to reinvent their discipline from a 21 st... more
This article presents a set of arguments about decolonisation debates and practices in the South African academy, and particularly efforts by anthropologists based at South African universities to reinvent their discipline from a 21 st century southern African perspective. I argue that the student movements of 2015-2016 were the primary cause of robust conversations about epistemological and pedagogical issues that had previously not been raised in the post-apartheid South African academy. Questions about the politics of knowledge and curriculum reform were forcefully put on the agenda by the massive movements and opened the space for intense debates about the decolonisation of academic institutions and knowledge production in teaching and research. The discussion starts with an appraisal of the student movements that called for decolonisation of teaching and research in South African universities. Debates and practical efforts of decolonising South African anthropology will be presented against the background of past and present anthropological practice in the country. Corresponding to my argument that while decolonisation is an indispensable response to colonialism and coloniality everywhere, the concepts of decolonisation have distinctive meaning in different contexts, I contend that in South Africa, as a grossly unequal society, social justice is inevitably a key element of any discussion of decolonisation. Inequalities likewise continue to manifest in and between post-apartheid universities, which I demonstrate through close descriptions of recent efforts to decolonise the production of anthropological knowledge in three South African institutions.
This contribution to the special issue on rethinking gender and time in African history (co-edited by Jonna Katto and Heike Becker) develops an argument about time and gender in African history in relation to historical sound recordings.... more
This contribution to the special issue on rethinking gender and time in African history (co-edited by Jonna Katto and Heike Becker) develops an argument about time and gender in African history in relation to historical sound recordings. Revisiting a case study from the Namibian sound archive I demonstrate innovative methodological strategies that open up new avenues of conceptual and theoretical thinking about gender and time in African history. Using the example of Nekwaya Loide Shikongo, a prominent woman from Ondonga in northern Namibia (the colonial 'Ovamboland'), and an epic poem on the deposed King Iipumbu yaShilongo that she performed in 1953, I discuss how gender was constituted and mediated in relation to colonial temporalities. The article presents a historical ethnography of how both the Christian mission's cultural discourse and the South African colonial administration's efforts to masculinize the 'native' political authority produced a gendered perception of Owambo women during the first half of the 20th century. However, it also demonstrates the performer's powerful, creative reappropriation of these discourses, which we can gauge by approaching the historical sound archive with a methodological strategy of 'close listening'. The argument thus extends to a broader reflection on the potential of historical sound recordings for challenging Eurocentric teleological narratives of gender and modernity. It also looks into the inherent limitations, and thus the opportunities and challenges, which the colonial sound archive presents for the development of decolonial methodologies in fields such as historical ethnography, cultural studies, and historiography.
This special issue seeks to problematize the way that time and gender-and their relationship to each other-is conceptualized in prevailing historical narratives about African pasts. Often we take these notions for granted in our practices... more
This special issue seeks to problematize the way that time and gender-and their relationship to each other-is conceptualized in prevailing historical narratives about African pasts. Often we take these notions for granted in our practices of research and writing. Even today, histories about gender in Africa often continue to be framed by Eurocentric teleological narratives of modernity. In this special issue-that brings together scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds, focusing on different time periods, and using different methodological approaches-we ask what would happen if we brought the notions of time and gender into a more critical focus. How would this reshape the gendered histories we write?
This article portrays a recent movement towards intersectional activism in urban Namibia. Since 2020, young Namibian activists have come together in campaigns to decolonize public space through removing colonial monuments and renaming... more
This article portrays a recent movement towards intersectional activism in urban Namibia. Since 2020, young Namibian activists have come together in campaigns to decolonize public space through removing colonial monuments and renaming streets. These have been linked to enduring structural violence and issues of gender and sexuality, especially queer and women's reproductive rights politics, which have been expressly framed as perpetuated by coloniality. I argue that the Namibian protests amount to new political forms of intersectional decoloniality that challenge the notion of decolonial activism as identity politics. The Namibian case demonstrates that decolonial movements may not only emphatically not be steeped in essentialist politics but also that activists may oppose an identity-based politics which postcolonial ruling elites have promoted. I show that, for the Namibian movements' ideology and practice, a fully intersectional approach has become central. They consciously juxtapose colonial memory with a living vision for the future to confront and situate colonial and apartheid history. Young Namibian activists challenge the intersectional inequalities and injustices, which, they argue, postcolonial Namibia inherited from its colonial-apartheid past: class inequality, racism, sexism, homophobia, and gender-based violence.
A few months short of the 25th anniversary of independence from South Africa in March 1990 Namibia reached her Fanonian moment. As Achille Mbembe has explained this term with regard to the South African student movements of 2015, a new... more
A few months short of the 25th anniversary of independence from South Africa in March 1990 Namibia reached her Fanonian moment. As Achille Mbembe has explained this term with regard to the South African student movements of 2015, a new generation has entered the country’s social and political scene and has forcefully asked penetrating new questions. In Namibia this has come in the shape of the Affirmative Repositioning (AR) movement.
Global and african: Exploring Hip-Hop Artists in Philippi Township, Cape Town. In this article we explore a set of issues related to the contemporary hip-hop culture in Cape Town. Firstly, we demonstrate how hip-hop as a form of popular... more
Global and african: Exploring Hip-Hop Artists in Philippi Township, Cape Town. In this article we explore a set of issues related to the contemporary hip-hop culture in Cape Town. Firstly, we demonstrate how hip-hop as a form of popular culture and the construction of identity are linked to the specifics of ‘space and place’. We discuss different forms that the performance of hip-hop takes in different spaces in greater Cape Town. The discussion of space and the politics of culture are linked to two interrelated aspects that are particularly significant for the discussion of cultural flows and identities. In contrast to the common perception that hip-hop in Cape Town was primarily of interest among ‘coloured’ youth, our presentation focuses on young performers living in an ‘African’ township. We pay special attention to the use of language and the performance of hip-hop lyrics in African languages. Our discussion explores how the use of hybridised African languages lends support to ...
Namibia’s postcolonial nationalist imaginary is by no means homogeneous. Overall, however, it is conspicuous that as Namibia celebrates her twenty-fifth anniversary of independence, national identity is no longer defined primarily through... more
Namibia’s postcolonial nationalist imaginary is by no means homogeneous. Overall, however, it is conspicuous that as Namibia celebrates her twenty-fifth anniversary of independence, national identity is no longer defined primarily through the common history of the liberation struggle but through the tolerant accommodation, even wholehearted celebration, of cultural difference. This article attempts to understand the shifting politics and aesthetics of Namibian nationalism from two interconnected angles. On the one hand, it takes a historical perspective; it looks into shifting discourses and practices of nationalism over the past century, starting from the anti-colonial resistance at the turn to the 20th century through to the twenty-fifth anniversary of Namibian independence. On the other hand, the article investigates the cultural redefinition of the bonds between the Namibian people(s), which has been a significant aspect of the constructions of postcolonial Namibian nationhood a...
The article shows how the discourses of trauma, victimhood and silence regarding local agency contributed to the production of the nationalist master narrative in post-colonial Namibia. However, I point out repositories of memory beyond... more
The article shows how the discourses of trauma, victimhood and silence regarding local agency contributed to the production of the nationalist master narrative in post-colonial Namibia. However, I point out repositories of memory beyond the narratives of victimhood and trauma, which began to add different layers to the political economy of silence and remembrance in the mid-2000s. Through revisiting visual forms of remembrance in northern Namibia an argument is developed, which challenges the dichotomy between silence and confession. It raises critical questions about the prominent place that the trauma trope has attained in memory studies, with reference to work by international memory studies scholars such as Paul Antze and Michael Lambek (1996) and South African researchers of memory politics, particularly the strategies of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The fresh Namibian material supports the key critique of the TRC, which suggests that the foregrounding of pain...
This article investigates how recently-constructed sites that anchor memories of anti-colonial resistance and national liberation have changed the urban landscape of the Namibian capital, Windhoek. The discussion is focused on the... more
This article investigates how recently-constructed sites that anchor memories of anti-colonial resistance and national liberation have changed the urban landscape of the Namibian capital, Windhoek. The discussion is focused on the Namibian Independence Memorial Museum and the Genocide Memorial. These North-Korean-built monuments in a prominent hilltop position central Windhoek have significantly altered the city’s skyline with their massive aesthetics of Stalinist realism. Built in a particular position, they have replaced an infamous colonial memorial, the ‘Windhoek Rider’, and dwarf the ‘Alte Feste’ fort and the ‘Christuskirche’, iconic German colonial remnants of the built environment.
Throughout 2015 students at South African universities rose up in a mass revolt. They made their voices heard from their campuses, from the streets, from the grounds of Parliament in Cape Town, and the lawns of the Union Buildings, the... more
Throughout 2015 students at South African universities rose up in a mass revolt. They made their voices heard from their campuses, from the streets, from the grounds of Parliament in Cape Town, and the lawns of the Union Buildings, the seat of national government in Pretoria. Students brought down a symbol of colonialism and exploitation, they fought against fee increases in higher education, they called for the end of racism and of neo-liberal outsourcing practices of support services at universities. Students demanded free education in more than one sense. As students are returning for the new academic year, and tensions have already flared up again at some universities it is appropriate to mull over the movement’s practice and theory.
This paper presents a discussion of urban struggles in Namibia in the 1980s, including community-based livelihood associations, students', workers', women's and cultural activism, with notes of transnational activism and the significance... more
This paper presents a discussion of urban struggles in Namibia in the 1980s, including community-based livelihood associations, students', workers', women's and cultural activism, with notes of transnational activism and the significance of popular culture. The history of the popular urban revolt of the 1980s has become particularly significant again In the light of a new generation of Namibian activists who have been forcefully asking penetrating questions and engaging in collective action over the past few years, especially during 2020. Published with a response by artist, activist & PhD scholar Nashilongweshipwe Mushaandja
In this article I read several recently published novels that attempt to write the early 20th century Namibian experience of colonial war and genocide. I read these recent works of fiction against an oral history-based biography, in which... more
In this article I read several recently published novels that attempt to write the early 20th century Namibian experience of colonial war and genocide. I read these recent works of fiction against an oral history-based biography, in which a Namibian author, Uazuvara Katjivena, narrates the story of his grandmother who survived the genocide.
Women and gender in Namibia: concise introduction and literature review: Women have had a significant role throughout Namibian history. Prior to colonization men were generally dominant, but certain women of high rank attained powerful... more
Women and gender in Namibia: concise introduction and literature review: Women have had a significant role throughout Namibian history. Prior to colonization men were generally dominant, but certain women of high rank attained powerful posi­ tions. Namibian societies and politics became thoroughly gendered during the German and South African colonial periods. After independence the postcolonial Namibian state drew on the intensive involvement of women in the liberation struggle and adopted a le­ gal framework and policies that emphasized gender equality. Nonetheless, little real im­ provement has been achieved for the majority of women in postcolonial Namibia. The country's high level of social inequality continues to be profoundly gendered.
This article explores the struggles of students and youth on the African continent that are too often left out of the narrative of the “’68 moment.” The focus is on the struggles of students in South Africa against apartheid in the late... more
This article explores the struggles of students and youth on the African continent that are too often left out of the narrative of the “’68 moment.” The focus is on the struggles of students in South Africa against apartheid in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the echoes of those movements in the 2015-16 student protests in South Africa.
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Ein Vierteljahrhundert nach dem Ende der Apartheid kam es an den Hochschulen in Südafrika zu massiven Protesten der Studierenden. Unter der Parole #FeesMustFall demonstrierten sie 2015 und 2016 nicht nur für die Abschaffung von... more
Ein Vierteljahrhundert nach dem Ende der Apartheid kam es an den Hochschulen in Südafrika zu massiven Protesten der Studierenden. Unter der Parole #FeesMustFall demonstrierten sie 2015 und 2016 nicht nur für die Abschaffung von Studiengebühren, sondern forderten die Einstellung von mehr schwarzen Professor_innen sowie die Dekolonisierung des ge-samten Bildungssystems. Es ging ihnen also auch um die institutionelle Kultur an den Universitäten und die wissenschaft-lichen Inhalte. 2018 scheint Ruhe an den Hochschulen eingekehrt zu sein. Dennoch haben die Proteste viel erreicht und an einigen Universitäten wichtige Veränderungsprozesse in Gang gesetzt.
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Short article on Claude Lanzmann, Frantz Fanon, and Lanzmann's involvement in the liberation struggle for Algeria, published by roape.net
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A tribute to educationalist and community and feminist activist Ottilie Schimming Abrahams (1937-2018)
Water crisis in Cape Town: What is behind it, ecologically and in terms of political economy, including a personal reflection
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Steve Biko, the formation of SASO and the Durban moment
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overview of 1968 protests and movements across the African continent
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Short article on 1968 student movements in Senegal and South Africa
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This article investigates how recently-constructed sites that anchor memories of anti-colonial resistance and national liberation have changed the urban landscape of the Namibian capital, Windhoek. The discussion is focused on the... more
This article investigates how recently-constructed sites that anchor memories of anti-colonial resistance and national liberation have changed the urban landscape of the Namibian capital, Windhoek. The discussion is focused on the Namibian Independence Memorial Museum and the Genocide Memorial. These North-Korean-built monuments in a prominent hilltop position central Windhoek have significantly altered the city's skyline with their massive aesthetics of Stalinist realism. Built in a particular position, they have replaced an infamous colonial memorial, the 'Windhoek Rider', and dwarf the 'Alte Feste' fort and the 'Christuskirche', iconic German colonial remnants of the built environment.
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Review of Reinhart Koessler; Namibia and Germany: Negotiating the Past
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The paper presents an analysis of how visual and musical aesthetics converge in the performed production of history, as creolization, and ethnically specific ‘heritage’, and how the self-stylization is employed in asserting a... more
The paper presents an analysis of how visual and musical aesthetics converge in the performed production of history, as creolization, and ethnically specific ‘heritage’, and how the self-stylization is employed in asserting a linguistic-cultural ‘identity’. This is done through an investigation of the aesthetics and politics of the ‘hip- hopera’ Afrikaaps. Afrikaaps was produced in 2010 by a group of musicians and spoken word artists from Cape Town and the rural Western Cape Province of South Africa.
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Review of Rick Schroeder; Africa after apartheid (2012). Discusses post apartheid South Africa's expansion into the African continent, with focus on Tanzania
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Article on the extraordinary South African student movement of 2015, its activist practices and philosophical orientations. (article in German)
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Throughout 2015 students at South African universities rose up in a mass revolt. They made their voices heard from their campuses, from the streets, from the grounds of Parliament in Cape Town, and the lawns of the Union Buildings, the... more
Throughout 2015 students at South African universities rose up in a mass revolt. They made their voices heard from their campuses, from the streets, from the grounds of Parliament in Cape Town, and the lawns of the Union Buildings, the seat of national government in Pretoria. Students brought down a symbol of colonialism and exploitation, they fought against fee increases in higher education, they called for the end of racism and of neo-liberal outsourcing practices of support services at universities. Students demanded free education in more than one sense. As students are returning for the new academic year, and tensions have already flared up again at some universities it is appropriate to mull over the movement's practice and theory. Decolonizing institutions, decolonizing knowledge, decolonizing the mind have been the tags of the new generation of activists. South Africa's student activists have asked new questions, they have challenged the country's old and new establishments; they have also forged new alliances and have engaged new political forms. Their activism has drawn on new, distinctive theoretical intersections combining recent theories of intersectionality with the writings of Frantz Fanon, the militant philosopher of revolutionary, anticolonial humanism.
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YOUTH, SOCIAL MOVEMENT AND PROTEST IN NAMIBIA I share a brief piece I wrote on the development of a movement of urban youth in Namibia, which took off from a spectacular and audacious occupation of a piece of land in an affluent suburb of... more
YOUTH, SOCIAL MOVEMENT AND PROTEST IN NAMIBIA
I share a brief piece I wrote on the development of a movement of urban youth in Namibia, which took off from a spectacular and audacious occupation of a piece of land in an affluent suburb of Windhoek in November 2014 and challenged the Namibian political establishment and the country's ruling party.
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In this overview of South African Anthropology Andrew 'Mugsy' Spiegel and I review the historical trajectories of Social and Cultural Anthropology in South Africa. Questions are raised regarding the state of South African Anthropology in... more
In this overview of South African Anthropology Andrew 'Mugsy' Spiegel and I review the historical trajectories of Social and Cultural Anthropology in South Africa. Questions are raised regarding the state of South African Anthropology in the early 21st century.
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My farewell to Anthropology Southern Africa, which I edited between 2011 and 2015 describes the exciting recent history of the journal from its previous incarnation to ASnA's relaunch as a southern African based periodical with... more
My farewell to Anthropology Southern Africa, which I edited between 2011 and 2015 describes the exciting recent history of the journal from its previous incarnation to ASnA's relaunch as a southern African based periodical with international reach.
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This article investigates Namibian nationalism over the past century, with special emphasis on the post-1990 period. I point out that, despite some paradoxical moments, as Namibia celebrates her twenty-fifth anniversary of independence,... more
This article investigates Namibian nationalism over the past century, with special emphasis on the post-1990 period.  I point out that, despite some paradoxical moments, as Namibia celebrates her twenty-fifth anniversary of independence, national identity is no longer defined primarily through the common history of the liberation struggle but through the tolerant accommodation, even wholehearted celebration, of cultural difference. This article attempts to understand the shifting politics and aesthetics of Namibian nationalism from two interconnected angles. On the one hand, it takes a historical perspective; it looks into shifting discourses and practices of nationalism over the past century, starting from the anti- colonial resistance at the turn to the 20th century through to the twenty-fifth anniversary of Namibian independence. On the other hand, the article investigates the cultural redefinition of the bonds between the Namibian people(s), which has been a significant aspect of the constructions of postcolonial Namibian nationhood and citizenship. The argument highlights urban social life and cultural expression and the links between everyday life and political mobilization. It thereby emphasizes the nationalist activism of the developing Black urban culture of the post-World War II era
and the internal urban social movements of the 1980s.
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A review of 'Counting teeth', a travelogue combined with a well-researched Namibian history narrative. Author Peter Midgley, based in Canada, sets out on a road journey across the country of his birth, Namibia; taking along his... more
A review of 'Counting teeth', a travelogue combined with a well-researched Namibian history narrative. Author Peter Midgley, based in Canada, sets out on a road journey across the country of his birth, Namibia; taking along his nineteen-year-old daughter. Their travels follow a trail of death and graves, for Namibia is a country whose history is steeped in war and violence.
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This article presents visual imaginations of ‘culture’ by residents of some townships of Cape Town, which were expressed through auto-photography, life histories, and responses to an exhibition. The article demonstrates how South African... more
This article presents visual imaginations of ‘culture’ by residents of some townships of Cape Town, which were expressed through auto-photography, life histories, and responses to an exhibition. The article demonstrates how South African residents have been engaged in multiple ways of re-imagining identities and concepts of culture, identity and social difference against the ideological background of post-apartheid ‘rainbowism’ and the apartheid past. The project thus investigated how people negotiate the meanings of culture in a historical situation, in which the idea of bounded culture/s has served for many years as a politically highly charged discursive formation, which ordered a racially and linguistically diverse population hierarchically. It was found that people’s imaginations connected with a range discourses originating in the public sphere, specific social settings and micro-contexts, as well as personal aspirations.
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Popular culture studies have become an increasingly salient arena of contemporary anthropology in recent years, especially in relation to resistance, religion, and the politics of difference. Johannes Fabian (1978) introduced the term... more
Popular culture studies have become an increasingly salient arena of contemporary anthropology in recent years, especially in relation to resistance, religion, and the politics of difference. Johannes Fabian (1978) introduced the term ‘popular culture’ to anthropological inquiry, understood as contemporary cultural expressions by the masses in contrast to both modern elitist and traditional ‘tribal’ culture. Anthropological perspectives in popular culture studies emphasize an ethnographic approach and the sense-making of audiences.
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An article written during the climax of national student protests in South Africa in October 2015. It discusses the context and significance of the revived student movements over the months March to October 2015.
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The article shows how the discourses of trauma, victimhood and silence regarding local agency contributed to the production of the nationalist narrative in Namibia. I point out repositories of memory beyond the narratives of victimhood... more
The article shows how the discourses of trauma, victimhood and silence regarding local agency contributed to the production of the nationalist narrative in Namibia. I point out repositories of memory beyond the narratives of victimhood and trauma, which began to add different layers to the political economy of silence and remembrance in the mid-2000s. Through revisiting visual forms of remembrance in northern Namibia an argument is developed, which challenges the dichotomy between silence and confession. The Namibian material supports a key critique of the South African T.R.C., which suggests that the foregrounding of pain and victimhood, and rituals of the ray and healing entailed a loss of the political framings of the testimonial moment.
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This book, based on a PhD dissertation in the Social Sciences, discusses the past and present of gender and nationalism in Namibia. It considers the periods of anti-colonial resistance, the liberation struggle, and the first years of... more
This book, based on a PhD dissertation in the Social Sciences, discusses the past and present of gender and nationalism in Namibia. It considers the periods of anti-colonial resistance, the liberation struggle, and the first years of post-colonial Namibia. 'Namibian Women's Movement' investigates the legacy of migrant labour, German and South African colonialism. The focus of the research is on the 1980s period of liberation struggle inside Namibia and from exile. The book provides a critical analysis of the tensions between the SWAPO leadership and social movements.
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The paper outlines the contestations around gender and nationalism during the anti-colonial liberation struggle from exile and inside the country. It provides an overview of the politics regarding nationalist politics and women's... more
The paper outlines the contestations around gender and nationalism during the anti-colonial liberation struggle from exile and inside the country. It provides an overview of the politics regarding nationalist politics and women's struggles from the perspective of SWAPO, autonomous women's organisations and other social movements of the  1980s.
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This paper has drawn together oral and written texts authored by women who originate from Owambo, northern Namibia. We focus on Owambo women's literature not to 're-bantustan' the diverse people of Namibia, but rather as a way of looking... more
This paper has drawn together oral and written texts authored by women who originate from Owambo, northern Namibia. We focus on Owambo women's literature not to 're-bantustan' the diverse people of Namibia, but rather as a way of looking at artistic articulations of a unique historical and social experience in oral and written texts.
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Namibia was South Africa’s testing ground for its ambitious apartheid dreams. South Africa’s colonial connection with Namibia, then the mandated territory of South West Africa (SWA), is today often either ignored or dismissed, even by... more
Namibia was South Africa’s testing ground for its ambitious apartheid dreams. South Africa’s colonial connection with Namibia, then the mandated territory of South West Africa (SWA), is today often either ignored or dismissed, even by historians of apartheid. The Namibian-born and bred anthropologist Robert J. (Rob) Gordon’s latest book aims to redress this fault by demonstrating the significance of colonised Namibia for the development of apartheid. The narrative revolves around the role of so-called ‘native’ experts.
Review of Elaine Salo's posthumously published monograph on  personhood and gender in Manenberg township
Reviewing Robert J. Gordon's biography of Max Gluckman, which points out the context and importance of early radical anthropology in South and Southern Africa
Review of the collection "Postcolonial African Anthropologies", ed. by Rose Boswell and Francis Nyamnjoh
Review of "National liberation in postcolonial Southern Africa: a historical ethnography of SWAPO's exile camps" by Christian A Williams
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Identity, Inc. :A critical review of publications in identity-talk and market research in South Africa
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A substantive review of African Gender Studies; reviews a collection of iconic texts in African Gender Studies, edited by Andrea Cornwall
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A unique reader containing annotated sources on student protests in the Global South (1918-2018). The focus os on primary sources that voice and perform critique and protest in Latin America, Africa and South Asia. Also includes... more
A unique reader containing annotated sources on student protests in the Global South (1918-2018). The focus os on primary sources that voice and perform critique and protest in Latin America, Africa and South Asia. Also includes introductory articles on the question of how global was "1968", on university reform and student movements in Latin America, on Africa's 1968: Protests across the continent, and on South African student protests, 1968-2016.