Wielding the Epokolo

Corporal Punishment and Traditional Authority in Colonial Ovamboland

Bibliographic Data

ID8979136
AuthorsDavid Crawford Jones (The Ohio State University, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume56
Issue2
Pages301-320
Publication date2015-06-12
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of African History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-8537 • E-ISSN: 1469-5138
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0021853715000018
OpenAlexW2417461494
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited17

Based on both archival research and oral interviews conducted in northern Namibia, this article traces the history of public flogging in Ovamboland throughout the twentieth century. In contrast to recent scholarship that views corporal punishment in modern Africa mainly through the lens of colonial governance, the article argues that because the South African colonial state never withdrew the power to punish from the region's traditional authorities, these indigenous leaders were able to maintain a degree of legitimacy among their subjects, who looked to the kings and headmen to punish wrongdoers and maintain communal norms. Finally, the article explores why nostalgia for corporal punishment remains a salient feature in Namibian society today, 25 years after the end of colonial rule

Colonialism · Corporal punishment · Corporate governance · Criminology · Ethnology · Indigenous · Legitimacy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Punishment (psychology · Scholarship · Sociology · State (computer science · Traditional authority · African history and culture studies · Gender Studies · German Colonialism and Identity Studies · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology

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