The Institutionalization of Contract Labour in Namibia

This paper looks at the origins and effects of a repressive contract labour system, as experienced by the Kavango and Ovambo contract labourers.1 It also investigates the initial contact with European traders and later employers in the Police Zone, which produced a marked effect on the Ovambo and the Kavango lives. This paper analyses the contract labourers‟ distinct position in the political economy of colonial Namibia, under firstly Germany and later South African rule, and their specific economic, social and living conditions. These aspects are relevant when exploring the exploitation and attempts at totalitarian control by the colonial administration that nurtured class consciousness and political militancy. The exploitative and repressive conditions entrenched in the contract labour system persisted since the inception of Kavango and Ovambo labour migration to the south in the late 19th century, and were factors in their growing political consciousness in the early 1970s. Cont.

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Journal of Southern African Studies

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Journal of Southern African Studies

This article focuses on the aftermath of the First World War for West African Kru in colonial Namibia. It posits that Kru had been a ‘labour elite’ in the colony under German rule and that the war and resulting years of South African occupation led to their economic decline. By the early 1920s, this situation was a strong factor in West Africans’ robust engagement and leadership within the colony’s ‘Africa for the Africans’ Garveyite movement. Economic troubles after the First World War, as well as an increasing tendency towards intermarriage between Kru and local Namibians, factored into Kru workers’ decisions to join political ranks with the Herero and other groups who had suffered under German rule. Both local and migrant Africans saw Garveyism as a possible solution for their new economic and societal challenges. The paper utilises a South West African migrant worker database (WBL Namibian Worker Database) compiled for this research as well as micro-histories to give insight into individual worker experiences between 1914 and 1920. On a broader note, this work expands research on the role of West African labour in colonial Namibia bringing regional historiography more firmly into the scope of Global History.

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Journal of Namibian Studies, 22 (2017): 81 – 98 ISSN: 2197-5523 (online)

The article investigates the desire for modernity as represented by western commodities, Christianity and education, among Ovambo. It addresses the reasons why Ovambo men in particular entered contract waged labour, the struggles they went through due to the work environment, and the different ways in which waged labour was integrated into their lives. Sources include elements of former migrant labourers’ biographies. The article argues that the way in which Ovambo men set about acquiring European commodities was mediated by an existing set of motivations, which suggested disillusionment with their traditional leaders and headmen from the late 1930s to the early 1950s and that, while in most cases the immediate reason given for men becoming migrant labourers was the monetary benefit, young men were also attracted by the status symbols possessed by the elite such as clothing and consumer goods.

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The Companhia de Diamantes de Angola, or Diamang, mined for diamonds in colonial Angola from 1917 until independence in 1975. The enterprise’s Health Services Division (SSD) was responsible for supplying mine managers with an African labour force comprised of healthy, and therefore productive, employees. In practice, though, this otherwise ‘healthy’ system did not always work. While SSD personnel attempted to fulfil their charge by implementing a series of screening measures, production targets and a scarcely-populated regional labour pool regularly prompted senior officials to compel the SSD to clear recruits who were otherwise unfit for mine service. Drawing upon interviews with former SSD staff and African labourers, as well as company and colonial archival sources, this article focuses on the interplay over time between the SSD, the company’s production demands and these labourers.

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Journal of Namibian Studies, 16 (2014): 47 – 60 ISSN 2197-5523 (online)

This article is about the experiences of contract farm labourers from Kavango in Namibia from 1925 (when the contract labour system became institutionalised) to 1972 (when the system ended) and focuses on the subjectivity of oral sources. About 30 former contract labourers were interviewed from July to September 2009 but for this paper only 11 interviews were used as they relate primarily to farm labour experiences. Based on recorded oral interviews supplemented with archival and written literature the article explores the labourers' experience of the migration process and their intra-personal relations at work and sleeping places. Furthermore it explains the social and economic impact of contract labour system on workers and their perceptions of the contract labour system. The aim is to explain how contract labourers present their personal experiences under the contract labour system and what their opinions about the contract labour system are. The significance of this article lies in the fact that it explores contract farm workers' perceptions and sub-jectivities which have so far been neglected in efforts to understand the experiences of contract farm workers in Namibia. Furthermore, the focus on Kavango will expand our knowledge of colonial farm work on a wider Namibian spectrum.

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This article is about the experiences of contract farm labourers from Kavango in Namibia from 1925 (when the contract labour system became institutionalised) to 1972 (when the system ended) and focuses on the subjectivity of oral sources. About 30 former contract labourers were interviewed from July to September 2009 but for this paper only 11 interviews were used as they relate primarily to farm labour experiences. Based on recorded oral interviews supplemented with archival and written literature the article explores the labourers’ experience of the migration process and their intra-personal relations at work and sleeping places. Furthermore it explains the social and economic impact of contract labour system on workers and their perceptions of the contract labour system. The aim is to explain how contract labourers present their personal experiences under the contract labour system and what their opinions about the contract labour system are. The significance of this article lies.

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