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Narratives of Identity among German Immigrants in Post-Colonial Namibia

Bibliographic Data

ID3136408
AuthorsHeidi Armbruster (0000-0002-5630-5896, University of Southampton, corresponding author)
Year2008
Volume34
Issue3
Pages611-628
Publication date2008-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Southern African Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0305-7070 • E-ISSN: 1465-3893
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03057070802259852
OpenAlexW2164762183
LanguageEN
Citations received4

This article is based on ethnographic pilot research among German immigrants in Namibia. It employs content and discourse analysis of interview narratives emerging in conversations with two generations of German migrants: individuals who settled in the 1950s and 1960s and a younger cohort who immigrated in the 1980s and 1990s. Interview extracts in which respondents address their arrival and adjustment are chosen to explore narrative reconstructions of integration in (post)-colonial Namibia. However, integration is largely sought in the social and symbolic context defined as ‘German’ and ‘white’, and in dissociation from Namibia as ‘Africa’. Silences, ambivalences, and contradictions at the narrative level reveal these generational cohorts to be slightly different, yet equally evasive about the problematic inheritance of white privilege. While, in contrast to the earlier migrants, the more recent arrivals maintain appeals to liberalism, these interviews suggest that 16 years after independence Namibian whites have not yet begun a process of critical self-reflection

Colonialism · Ethnography · German · Immigration · Narrative · Political science · Racism · Sociology · White privilege · Anthropology · Gender Studies · German Colonialism and Identity Studies · History · Law

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