Gender and Colonialism

Lorena Rizzo

Description

This book deals with colonialism on a Namibian periphery and considers both the German colonial period as well as South African rule in the country. The marginality of the Kaoko region within this colonial topography of power is analysed as a dynamic and fractured feature where power relations and constellations remained highly contested. The dynamics of gender within a regional society constituted of men and women, African and European, receive special attention within frameworks engaging with colonial photography, oral histories and gendered visions.

Sujets

• Africa
• History
• General
• South
• General officer

Informations

• Publié par: Basler Afrika Bibliographien
• Date de parution: 29 décembre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9783905758498
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 9 Mo

Extrait

Gender and Colonialism

Basel Namibia Studies Series

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Zedekia NgavirueP OLITICAL P ARTIESAND I NTEREST G ROUPSIN S OUTH W EST A FRICA (N AMIBIA ) A S TUDYOFA P LURAL S OCIETY (1972) (1997)

Wolfgang Werner‘N OONEWILLBECOMERICH ’. E CONOMYAND S OCIETYINTHE H ERERO R E - SERVESIN N AMIBIA , 1915–1946 (1998)

Lauren Dobell6 :$32 ÷æ 6 6 758**/()25 1 $0,%,$  ô : $5%<27+(5 0 ($16   ND (2 (',7,21 

Tony EmmettP OPULAR R ESISTANCEANDTHE R OOTSOF N ATIONALISMIN N AMIBIA , 1915–1966 (1999)

James Suzman‘T HINGSFROMTHE B USH ’. A C ONTEMPORARY H ISTORYOFTHE O MAHEKE B USH - 0(1 

William Heuva0 (',$$1' 5 (6,67$1&( 3 2/,7,&6  7 +( $ /7(51$7,9( 3 5(66,1 1 $0,%,$  ô  

Marion Wallace+ ($/7+  3 2:(5$1' 3 2/,7,&6,1 : ,1'+2(.  1 $0,%,$  ô 

8/9 Lovisa T. Nampala; Vilho ShigwedhaA AWAMBO K INGDOMS , H ISTORYAND C ULTURAL & +$1*(  3 (563(&7,9(6)520 1 257+(51 1 $0,%,$ 

10 Bennett KangumuC ONTESTING C APRIVI . A H ISTORYOF C OLONIAL I SOLATIONAND R EGIONAL 1 $7,21$/,60,1 1 $0,%,$ 

11 Inge Tvedten“A S L ONGAS T HEY D ON ’ T B URY M E H ERE ”. S OCIAL R ELATIONSOF P OVERTYINA 1 $0,%,$1 6 +$17<72:1 

12 Julie J. TaylorN AMINGTHE L AND . S AN I DENTITYAND C OMMUNITY C ONVERSATIONIN N AMIBIA ' S : (67 & $35,9, 

L R ORENA IZZO Introduction by Patricia Hayes

Gender and Colonialism A History of Kaoko in north-western Namibia, 1870s–1950s

Basel Namibia Studies Series 14

Basler Afrika Bibliographien 2012

Kindly supported by Max Geldner-Fonds, Basel, and by Basel University Dissertation Fund.

©2012 The authors ©2012 The photographers ©2012 Basler Afrika Bibliographien

Basler Afrika Bibliographien 2012 Namibia Resource Centre & Southern Africa Library Klosterberg 23 PO Box 2037 CH-4051 Basel Switzerland www.baslerafrika.ch

All rights reserved.

Efforts were made to trace the copyright holders of illustrations and maps used in this publication. We apologise for any incomplete or incorrect acknowledgements.

Cover photograph: NAN 2984, “Woman with child (Herero), on donkey”, Roth, 1951.

Basic Cover Design: VischerVettiger Basel

$GDSWHG &RYHU 'HVLJQ DQG /D\RXW 3HWUD .HUFNKRĶ

Printed by John Meinert Printing (PTY) Ltd., Windhoek, Namibia 3ULQWHG RQ öWULSOH JUHHQ÷ SDSHU VL[W\ SHUFHQW VXJDU FDQH ķEUH FKORULQHIUHH VXVWDLQDEOH DĶRUHVWDWLRQ

ISBN 978-3-905758-27-6 ISSN 2234-9561

Contents

Less is more? History and the Kaoko.An introduction by Patricia Hayes Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I:*HQGHU DQG &RQĸLFW 1. The expansion & collapse of Oorlam socio-economic hegemony in Kaoko 1.1. Compulsory land and stock expropriation in Sesfontein 1.2. Southern Kaoko at the outbreak of the war 2. Male Business - raiding economies and commercial trade th 2.1. The socio-economy of Kaoko in the second half of the 19 century 2.2. The territorial anchorage of Oorlam rule 2.3. Raiding, hunting and long-distance trade 2.4. Evaluating Oorlam rule in Kaoko between the 1860s and the 1890s 3. Facing the raiding economy 3.1. Male mercenaries and collective strategies of survival  ,QWHJUDWLRQ DQG SROLWLFDO DĹOLDWLRQ ZLWKLQ .DRNR 3.3. Ambivalences and alternatives in central Kaoko  0LJUDWLRQ DQG ĸLJKW 4. Rinderpest 4.1. The Rinderpest and the collapse of Oorlam hegemony 4.2. The Establishment of the Northern District  *HQGHU FRQĸLFW

Part II:Gender & Colonial Counter Insurgency 1. The expeditions of Major Manning to Kaoko in 1917 and 1919 1.1. Introduction 1.2. South African military expedition and early administration in northern Namibia 1.3. The reports of Major Manning – narratives of counter insurgency  (FRQRPLF GLĶHUHQWLDWLRQ DQG UHSDVWRUDOL]DWLRQ LQ .DRNR EHWZHHQ –1915 2.1. The socio-economy of Kaoko in the early 1910s 2.2. Southern Kaoko and entrenchments with the settler economy in the Outjo district 3. Immigrations to Kaoko 3.1. Introduction 3.2. Negotiating residence – Kakurukouje, Muhona Katiti and Vita Tom

IX XV 1

19 20 20 24 28 28 31 35 43 44 44  47  55 55 63 

73 74 74

77 78 82 84

91 98 98 99

3.3. Increasing violence – raiding and appropriation of resources 3.4. Responses by the local communities 4. Colonial administration and the constitution of political leadership 4.1. Introduction 4.2. Indirect rule – building up political counterparts in the region 4.3. Separating people 4.4. Gender and counterinsurgency

Part III:Gender & Containment 1. Introduction 2. Forced removals in southern Kaoko in 1929 2.1. African communities in southern Kaoko in the late 1920s 2.2. The removals 3. Enforcing reserves 3.1. Imposing external borders 3.2. Internal borders – containing the 1923 reserves 4. The north-western reserves within a Namibian perspective 4.1. Pressures on the north-western pastoral economy 4.2. Southern Kaoko and the separation of the northern areas from the Police Zone 5. Fractured colonial administration – mobility and containment 5.1. Controlling the mobility of herds and of people 5.2. Trade, dependent work, and participation in the cash economy 5.3. Gender and the enforcement of reserves

Part IV: Gender & Colonial Law 1. Introduction 2. The elephant shooting case 2.1. Reconstructing the case 2.2. The murder case 3. A place in-between – colonial ambivalence and African friction in Kaoko Otavi th 3.1. Kaoko Otavi at the beginning of the 20 century 3.2. Game and entangled hunting economies 4. Colonial narratives – the case records and the problem of indigenous voices 4.1. Colonial jurisdiction and the coming of the law 4.2. Recorded statements – exploring the legal narrative 5. Negotiating gender 5.1. Challenges to male authority 5.2. Marginalizing female agency 5.3. Gender & colonial law

102 105 110 110 113 116 120

123 124 125 127 129 135 135 139 147 148

151 153 154 161 172

174 175 176 178 180 181 181 184 188 190 192 194 195 201 204

Part V: Gender & the Technologies of Empire 1. The inoculation campaign against lungsickness in Kaoko in 1938 1.1. The narrative of disease eradication 1.2. Inoculation, the pastoral economy and the colonial state 2. A broader plan of disease management 2.1. Expansion to the northern areas  6SUHDGLQJ D GLVHDVH ô ķVVXUHV DQG IDLOXUHV RI WKH LQRFXODWLRQ FDPSDLJQV 3.1. Evaluating the lungsickness campaign of 1938 3.2. Second lungsickness inoculation campaign of 1939 4. Technologies of empire 4.1. The constitution of the colonial state in Kaoko 4.2. Undermining the pastoral economy 4.3. Gender and the technologies of empire

Part VI: Gender & Visuality. th &RORQLDO 3KRWRJUDSK\ LQ .DRNR LQ WKH ķUVW KDOI RI WKH century 1. Introduction 1.1. Colonial photography in Southern Africa and Namibia 1.2. Colonial photography in Kaoko 2. Central Kaoko in the late 1940s and early 1950s 2.1. Nuancing colonial spatiality and indirect rule in Kaoko 2.2. Economic isolation and contested trade 3. The photographs of Heinz Roth 3.1. Notes on the social biographies of the photographs of Heinz Roth 3.2. Visions of gender – nature and natives 3.3. The internal gaze – photographs of the expedition 4. Gendered visions – oral histories around the Roth photographs 4.1. Gender & visuality – using photographs in history

Epilogue List of Figures and Map Bibliography Unpublished Sources Published Sources Interviews Index

207 208 208 211 213 215  216 226 233 235 241 252

255 256 256 259 262 266 267 273 276 277 279 289 293 300

302 305 306 306 310 323 325

Basel Namibia Studies Series

In 1997,PublishingP. Schlettwein (PSP) launched theBasel Namibia Studies Seriespri-. Its mary aim was to lend support to a new generation of research, scholars and readers emerg- ing with the independence of Namibia in 1990. Initially, the book series published crucially important doctoral theses on Namibian his- tory. It soon expanded to include more recent political, anthropological, media and cultural history studies by Namibian scholars. P. Schlettwein Publishing,as an independent publishing house, maintained the series in collaboration with theBasler Afrika BibliographienNamibia Resource Centre and (BAB), Southern Africa Library in Switzerland. All share a commitment to encourage research on Africa in general and southern Africa in particular. Through the incorporation of PSP into theCarl Schlettwein Stiftung,the series, by then a consolidated platform for Namibian Stud- ies and beyond, was integrated into the publishing activities of the BAB. Academic publishing, whether from or about Namibia, remains limited. TheBasel Na- mibia Studies Seriescontinues to provide a forum for exciting scholarly work in the human and social sciences. The editors welcome contributions. For further information, or submission of manu- scripts, please contact theBasler Afrika Bibliographienat www.baslerafrika.ch.

Less is more? History and the Kaoko

An introduction

The force of residual histories that are delineated in this new work on Kaoko, and the XQLTXHQHVV RI WKHLU VFDOH RSHQ XS VSHFLķF QHZ KRUL]RQV RQ 1DPLELD DQG WKH VXEFRQWLQHQW ,Q WKLV SUHIDFH , ZLVK WR FRPPHQW EULHĸ\ RQ WKH PDQ\ HQMR\PHQWV SURGXFHG E\ WKLV QHZ sense of history and its parallel methodological moves. This region, whose naming Lorena Rizzo turns into a colonial problematic, has been inhabited and passed through by numerous populations. These processes have left frag- mented histories and indeed very fractured archives. While many have passed through, and those who resided there dwelt only in pockets or on the move, this supposedly isolated region has mostly been passed over by many scholars. But in some ways it holds the key to XQķQLVKHG GHEDWHV IURP RWKHU SDUWV RI 1DPLELD DQG LQGHHG WKH HQWLUH OHQJWK RI WKH VRXWK western coast of Africa. Why? In line with the tropes of the ‘last frontier’ (coined by popular author Negley Farson), and of the ‘lonely outpost of empire’ (the Resident Commissioner Manning’s phrase) where time ‘stood still’, processes and temporalities which had run their course elsewhere or been violently interrupted by the two colonialisms endured by the ter- ritory, tended to keep going in this remote north-western part of Namibia. The Kaoko region with its fragile ecology and relatively open frontiers extends a variety of histories, that we possibly imagined had been concluded elsewhere. For instance, Rizzo’s study takes the arguments of the late Brigitte Lau on the Oorlams into a completely new di- PHQVLRQ JLYHQ WKDW WZR RĶVKRRWV RI WKH 2RUODPV VHWWOHG LQ .DRNR DQG KDYH QRW SUHYLRXVO\ been subject to close historical scrutiny. This story of dynamic militarised, hybridised black groups who lived out the idiom of the ‘boer’ commando did not end with the histories of the 1 Namibian south which have received considerable attention elsewhere. The early part of WKLV ERRN WKHUHIRUH WDNHV XS DQ XQķQLVKHG VWRU\ ZKLFK LV DOVR SDUW RI D PXFK ELJJHU VRXWK- ern African story about the impact of merchant capital on the subcontinent. Joseph Miller’s monumental work on Angola, and a host of historians in South Africa who debated the 2 origins and aftermath of the ‘mfecane’, have all engaged with questions around commoditi-

1

2

See for example Brigitte Lau,South and central Namibia in Jonker Afrikaner’s time(Windhoek: National Archives, 1987); Jeremy Silvester, ‘Black pastoralists, white farmers: the dynamics of land dispossession and labour recruitment in southern Namibia, 1915–1955 (unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, 1993); Tilman Dedering,Hate the Old and Follow the New: Khoek- th hoe and missionaries in early 19 century Namibia(Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1997). Joseph Miller,Way of Death: merchant capitalism and the Angolan slave trade, 1730–1830 (Madison: Wisconsin University Press, 1988); Carolyn Hamilton (ed),The Mfecane aftermath: reconstructive debates in Southern African history (Johannesburg: Wits University Press &

I

X