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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | From Reserve to Homeland: Local Identities and South African Policy in Southern Namibia |
Author: | Kössler, Reinhart |
Year: | 2000 |
Periodical: | Journal of Southern African Studies |
Volume: | 26 |
Issue: | 3 |
Period: | September |
Pages: | 447-462 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Namibia South Africa |
Subjects: | Nama foreign policy mandated territories communal lands Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Politics and Government colonialism Ethnic and Race Relations |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/2637412 |
Abstract: | This article focuses on South Africa's reserve policy in the former Police Zone of southern Namibia and gives some glimpses of indigenous responses. It sets out the formal aspects of that policy and gives some insight into its working on the ground through reference to two contrasting reserves in the area, Berseba, which had a comparatively small Herero and a fairly prominent Damara population, in addition to the Nama majority, and Krantzplatz or Gibeon reserve, usually associated with the Witbooi. From their inception up to the 1950s, the meaning of southern Namibian reserves was kept unclear. The 'ethnic shift' that culminated in the homeland strategy, implemented in Namibia from the mid-1960s onwards, appeared to respond to traditional aspirations embodied in the Odendaal Plan that proposed the formation of a homeland designated 'Namaland'. The reality of the construction of Namaland demonstrated the ulterior aim of the South African administration to create more efficient means of control and to concentrate African populations. The reshuffling of Nama groups created a host of additional conflicts that outlasted the demise of the homeland institutions. Ref., sum. |