|
|
AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
Show panel list
Archives and the shaping of Namibian historiography: whose voices, and why?
| Panel |
46. Shaping collections, producing alternative histories: The example of Namibia as a contested research entity
|
| Paper ID | 667 |
| Author(s) |
Wallace, Marion
|
| Paper |
No paper submitted
|
| Abstract | This paper looks critically at the archival and library collections available for Namibian history, and their relation to the historiography of one of Africa’s last colonies, which did not see independence until 1990. It does not aim to be comprehensive, but to raise some critical questions and initial arguments.
The paper begins with a (very general) survey of the existing archives and other collections, briefly discussing the creation of these materials, their geographical location and their various formats – i.a. manuscripts, printed materials, photographs, films and oral recordings. It then moves on to analyse some of the strengths and weaknesses of Namibian historiography, asking in particular where lacunae can be identified. For example, because the field remains in many respects under-researched, there are periods and areas for which even the basic ‘what’ and ‘when’ questions remain unanswered. For the second half of the twentieth century, the plentiful historical accounts essentially still give versions of political narrative which are only beginning to be complemented and deepened by social and economic history.
The paper then begins to explore the reasons for these lacunae and their relationship, if any, to the acquisition and accessibility of the historical sources. It finds no simple equation between the availability of evidence and its use, but a rather more complex relationship between collecting, preservation and research. Influential factors here include Namibia’s international connections, both as a colony and as a focus of solidarity; the geographical areas of centrality and marginality variously constructed within the narratives of the history of Namibia as a nation-state; and a range of interpretations (colonial, anthropological) that, while differing from each other, have placed ethnicity at the centre of African social organisation.
The question of oral history is a particularly pressing one. Historians have, arguably, been slower to engage with this kind of evidence for Namibia than for other parts of Africa, and the effects of this for the development and control of historiography are discussed.
|
|