Writers delve into Namibia's history
The Namibia Book Market launches two books this month that examine the history of Namibia.Lovisa Tegelela Nampala's Infrastructures of Migrant Labor in Colonial Ovamboland, 1915-1954 shines a light on the social and traditional resources that migrant workers mobilised in Ovamboland under colonial rule. This is the opposite of various historical records which generally emphasise the inhuman aspects.
Based on oral research, the book analyses the intangible systems that contract workers maintained, including observations of workplace deaths.
The book is broadly about the practices that held communities together in times of stress (when migrant workers worked far from home) and how these workers adapted to systems that came with colonialism, such as the postal system.
Nampala is currently the principal of the Combined School Uukelo in the Ohangwena Region. She obtained a doctorate in history at the University of the Western Cape with her thesis that makes up the book.
The book will be launched at the national library tonight.
Beggars in our own land
Dr. Willem Odendaal's Beggars on our own land. . . will be launched next Tuesday at the Namibia Scientific Society.
The book deals with the eviction of the Hai||om from the Etosha National Park in 1954 under South African administration.
The Hai||om brought an application in the higher court in 2015. The question of the legal procedures that the Hai||om can follow to approach Namibia's courts to claim compensation is the pivot of this book.
Among other things, Odendaal looks at the shortcomings in relation to historic land expropriation in Namibia's plan for land reform and finds that Namibia's legal framework is restrictive and outdated and that this played a role in the Hai||om's application in the high court.
Odendaal has a doctorate in law from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland, and is currently working with local communities in Namibia on issues related to human, land and environmental rights.