Making a South West Africa German? Attempting Imperial, Juridical, Colonial, Conjhugal and Moral Order

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Periodical article

Title:	Making a South West Africa German? Attempting Imperial, Juridical, Colonial, Conjhugal and Moral Order
Author:	Hartmann, Wolfram
Year:	2007
Periodical:	Journal of Namibian Studies
Issue:	2
Pages:	51-84
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Namibia
Subjects:	colonial law mixed marriage colonialism History and Exploration Ethnic and Race Relations Law, Human Rights and Violence
Abstract:	This article examines the origins of a decree prohibiting racially mixed marriages that was issued in German South West Africa (Namibia) in September 1905. A close reading of the archival sources together with the observation that only a negligible number of such marriages took place raises the crucial question as to why such a drastic measure was deemed necessary. The author argues that a lack of experience in a new and developing legal field combined with administrative inefficiences to allow a wide leeway to implement whatever was deemed desirable by the respective administrative official in the colony, regardless of what Berlin argued. The determinist, even teleological, notion that German racism was imposing itself in this situation has to be re-evaluated. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]