The Afrikadeutschen of Kroondal 1849 - 1949 (original) (raw)
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Journal of Southern African Studies, 2007
This essay explores Afrikaner immigration into German Southwest Africa during the period of German colonialism, 1884-1914. It focuses on the response of the German colonial authorities in Windhoek and in Berlin to the prospect of large-scale Afrikaner immigration as well as the representation of Afrikaners in German colonial discourse. German justifications of colonial rule were psychologically supported by notions of the imagined cultural and racial differences between the colonisers and the colonised. These underpinned the construction of a polarised self – other, white-black dichotomy and separated the indigenous Africans and Europeans into distinct categories of identification. The presence of settlers whose cultural practices and lifestyle did not match with the norms attributed to the desirable settler threatened to undermine the boundaries of difference between the colonists and colonised. Some elements of the German government and colonial press envisaged Afrikaner immigrants as a potential threat to continued German control over the colony. Others welcomed the immigration of the Afrikaners as colonial pioneers. The categories of black and white were deployed and reconstructed in order to assess the desirability of Afrikaner groups, leading to their assimilation or exclusion from settler society, and underlining the organising power of the schema. Cultural markers and economic considerations were used to differentiate desirable Afrikaner settlers from those deemed undesirable. Undesirable Afrikaner immigrants were representationally blackened through the use of racial rhetoric as well as being politically excluded from access to resources and land, and even physically excluded from the colony. In contrast desirable settlers were welcomed and Germanised. The episode of Afrikaner immigration was illustrative of the constant negotiation of categories of identification and the utilisation of a notion of whiteness in creating an exclusive settler society.
Journal of Namibian Studies, 14 (2013): 69 – 76 ISSN 2197-5523 (online) , 2013
The Protectorate German South West Africa was the only German colony which attracted a noteworthy number of German settlers and hence had a special relationship to the German Reich. This research note asks whether or to what extent German South West Africa became a subject of research, a challenge for the humanists and cultural scientists between 1884 and 1915. How, if at all, did the humanities and cultural studies concerned with historical developments approach this new component of the German Reich? Was there an academic appropriation of the Protectorate by historians, ethnologists and linguists as was implied occasionally in contemporary writings?
Processes of collective identity formation, its establishment, endangerment and possible destruction can not only be described as a common pattern of German colonial literature on South West Africa, but rather are to be considered as one of its main subjects. As a precondition for community and identity a radical discretion or also exclusivity is drawn up in colonial literature between antagonists between whom any comprehension, any mutual understanding is impossible. Every approach between "black" and "white" is presented as an existential and fatal indiscretion, which would lead up to – on both sides – bastardization, identity loss, "Verkafferung" and finally to decline. In the context of this construction, (that is) virulent in colonial discourse projections, threat and preservation of collective identity in an environment coded fundamentally as alien, the marking of a border line as demarcation line, as the point of no return, but also the crossing of this border as a challenge or as a threat, constitute two forms only seemingly opposed to each other, which meet densification in the figures of the "border runner" at the one hand and the "hybrid" at the other hand. In the course of this essay these constructions are traced back on the basis of a broad material basis and by means of examples of German colonial literature on South West Africa and will be located in the literary historical, historical discourse and historically-epistemologically contexts of the 19th to early 20th centuries.
By submitting this thesis electronically, I declare that the entirety of the work contained therein is my own, original work, that I am the sole author thereof (save to the extent explicitly otherwise stated), that reproduction and publication thereof by Stellenbosch University will not infringe any third party rights and that I have not previously in its entirety or in part submitted it for obtaining any qualification.
Making South West Africa German? Attempting imperial, juridical, colonial, conjugal and moral order
This article addresses the origins of a decree prohibiting racially-mixed marriages that was issued in German South West Africa 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. It is argued that a lack of experience in a new and developing legal field combined with administrative inefficiencies 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.
Journal of Namibian Studies, 12 (2012): 7 – 27 ISSN 2197-5523 (online) , 2012
Processes of collective identity formation, its establishment, endangerment and possible destruction can not only be described as a common pattern of German colonial literature on South West Africa, but rather must be seen as one of its main subjects. As a precondition for community and identity a radical discretion or exclusivity is drawn up between antagonists in colonial literature whereby any comprehension, any mutual understanding is impossible. All contact between 'black' and 'white' is presented as an existential and fatal indiscretion, which – for both sides – leads to bastardization, identity loss, 'Verkafferung' and, ultimately, to decline. In the context of these virulent problems of construction of, threats to and preservation of collective identity in an environment coded fundamentally as alien, which afflict colonial discourse projections, the marking of a border as the demarcation line, as the point of no return, but also the crossing of that border as a challenge or threat, constitute only apparently diametrically opposed forms, which are compressed into the figures of the 'border runner' on the one hand and the 'hybrid' on the other. This essay traces back these constructions through a broad range of material and by means of examples of German colonial literature on South West Africa and locates them in the literary historical, historical discourse and historically-epistemologically contexts of the 19 th to early 20 th centuries.
Wiener Zeitschrift für kritische Afrikastudien
2017
German colonial warfare in then South West Africa between 1904 and 1908 meets the definition of genocide. In this article, the nature and consequences of the war for the mainly affected communities of the Ovaherero and Nama are summarized, followed by the history and meaning of the notion of genocide. But the genocide in the German colony became only since the mid-1960s a matter of scholarly interest. The research results initially remained largely ignored and without major repercussions until the turn of the century. The discourse on genocide and its introduction into a wider German public is presented, leading to developments finally resulting in the official admission of the genocide by the German government in 2015. The subsequent bilateral Namibian-German negotiations over how to come to terms with this shared history are critically assessed. The conclusion seeks to position the efforts of a scholarly engagement with Germany's colonial past in its relevance for today.
2017
In social sciences, intercontinental migration is often seen as a phenomenon of South-North mobility or increasingly as a phenomenon of South-South mobility. In fact, the majority of intercontinental / interregional mobility is taking place between Africa and Asia, as well as between East and South Asia and the Middle East. The migration from the Global South to the North is roughly similar. Both migratory flows are also extensively examined by social anthropologists. Very rare subjects of anthropological research are migrations from the Global North to the Global South. While settlers emigrated from the urban centres and detached rural areas a hundred years ago as emigrants to the colonies of the empires, today it is often individualists who follow this path. It is this latter form of migration that Caterina Reinker dedicates her work to. Reinker examines perspectives and identities of German migrants in Cape Town. These are not migrants who leave their homes without means and / or...