History, memory and society in Namibia

Abstract

Preface

Namibian history is an exciting and constantly growing field. Since the country’s independence on 21 March 1990, historical studies of its colonial and precolonial pasts have burgeoned. They have forcefully reminded how deeply the past is still inscribed in the present. Historians have also brought into question the idea of a bounded space called Namibia or South West Africa. As elsewhere in colonial and postcolonial Africa, the political borders have been porous. If anything, Namibia’s long struggle for independence demonstrates the wide regional, transnational and increasingly global connections. The four articles in this special issue bring to fore these linkages.