Continuity and Change in Gender Relations within the Contract Labour System in Kavango, Namibia, 1925–1972

Abstract

The gendered historical investigation of migrant labour in Namibia (and southern Africa more broadly) has rightly considered the ways in which women left behind in the sending areas were obliged to take on additional agricultural duties in the absence of men. This has been viewed by some scholars as a form of material exploitation of women and a potential subsidy to white employers in these settler colonial spheres. While there is some validity to these claims, the relationship between the sending areas and the work site was not simply a material one, and contract/migrant labour recruiting systems entered spaces with existing gendered cultural repertoires concerning how to deal with absent men. The significance of these cultural frameworks is worthy of additional empirical, comparative and theoretical investigation. Through the use of oral interviews supplemented by archival materials, this article discusses these issues in the context of Kavango, north-eastern Namibia, which, for much of the 20th century, was a major source of contract labourers to the colonial economy in what was then South West Africa. The article argues that colonialism and labour recruiting schemes built upon and transformed existing pre-colonial cultural frameworks such as ‘the people’s child’, women’s observance of taboos and a local conception of ‘home’. This article further posits that the maintenance of this migrant labour system was dependent upon its integration into local worldviews.

Keywords:

• women
• gender relations
• migrant labour
• cultural change
• Kavango
• Namibia

Acknowledgements

Some of the information in this article is based on a section on ‘women in labour narratives’ in my 2012 PhD thesis, eventually published as a monograph in 2020 by the Basler Afrika Bibliographien, Switzerland.⁷⁹ I am grateful to the Carl Schlettwein Foundation, all the interviewees and all friends and colleagues for their immeasurable support in the completion of this article.

Notes

1 For a detailed, broad examination of contract labour in Kavango, see K. Likuwa, Voices from the Kavango: A Study of the Contract Labour System in Namibia, 1925–1972 (Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2020).

2 C. Walker, ‘Gender and the Development of the Migrant Labour System c.1850–1930’, in C. Walker (ed.), Women and Gender in Southern Africa to 1945 (Cape Town, David Philip, 1990), pp. 168–96.

3 H. Wolpe, ‘Capitalism and Cheap Labour Power in South Africa: From Segregation to Apartheid’, Economy and Society, 1, 4 (1972), pp. 425–56.

4 B. Bozzoli, ‘Marxism, Feminism, and South African Studies’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 9, 2 (1983), pp. 155–6.

5 The Police Zone refers to the area of white settler colonial investment, including the site of most mines, colonial towns and commercial farming operations. It was divided from the northern reserves/homelands by the so-called ‘red line’, a veterinary cordon fence. See G. Miescher, Namibia’s Red Line: A History of a Veterinary and Settlement Border (New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

6 E.N. Namhila, ‘Recordkeeping and Missing “Native Estate” Records in Namibia: An Investigation of Colonial Gaps in a Post-Colonial National Archive’ (PhD thesis, University of Tampere, 2015), p. 17.

7 On the topic of disorganised African archives, see, for example, S. Ally, ‘Material Remains: Artifice versus Artefact(s) in the Archive of Bantustan Rule’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 41, 5 (2015), pp. 977–85.

8 All interviews for this article were conducted by the author in 2009 or 2020. Informants were located through canvassing villages in Kavango. Transcripts of the interviews for 2009 and 2020 are in the author’s possession.

9 Concerning PhD and book-length studies that consider migrant labour in Namibia, see: P. Hayes, ‘A History of the Ovambo of Namibia, c.1880–1935’ (PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 1988); J. Silvester, ‘Black Pastoralists, White Farmers: Dynamics of Dispossession and Labour Recruitment in Southern Namibia, 1915–1955’ (PhD thesis, University of London, 1993); B. Kangumu, Contesting Caprivi: A History of Colonial Isolation and Regional Nationalism in Namibia (Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2011); E.N. Namhila, ‘Little Research Value’: African Estate Records and Colonial Gaps in a Postcolonial National Archive (Basel, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2017).

10 On Ovamboland, see: Hayes, ‘A History of the Ovambo’; N. Shiweda, ‘Omhedi: Displacement and Legitimacy in Oukwanyama Politics, Namibia, 1915–2010’, (PhD thesis, University of the Western Cape, 2011); M. McKittrick, To Dwell Secure: Generation, Christianity, and Colonialism in Ovamboland (Portsmouth, Heinemann, 2002).

11 See A.E. Eckl, ‘Konfrontation und Kooperation am Kavango (Nord-Namibia) von 1891 bis 1921’, (PhD thesis, Universität zu Köln, 2004), pp. 172–6.

12 SWAPO, To Be Born a Nation: The Liberation Struggle for Namibia (Luanda, SWAPO of Namibia, 1981); J. Ya Otto, Battlefront Namibia: An Autobiography (Westport, Lawrence Hill and Co., 1981).

13 Concerning this kind of analysis as it relates to Ovamboland, see: M. McKittrick, To Dwell Secure: Generation, Christianity, and Colonialism in Ovamboland (Portsmouth, Heinemann, 2002), pp. 226–39; N. Hishongwa, The Contract Labour System and its Effects on Family and Social Life: A Historical Perspective (Windhoek, Gamsberg Macmillan, 1992), pp. 95–108.

14 J. Guy, ‘Gender Oppression in Southern Africa’s Pre-Capitalist Societies’, in Walker (ed.), Women and Gender in Southern Africa to 1945, pp. 33–48.

15 Walker, ‘Gender and the Development of the Migrant Labour System’.

16 Ibid.

17 B. Bozzoli, Women of Phokeng: Consciousness, Life Strategy, and Migrancy in South Africa, 1990–1983 (London, James Currey, 1991).

18 Walker, ‘Gender and the Development of the Migrant Labour System’.

19 Ibid.

20 M. Akawa, The Gender Politics of the Namibian Liberation Struggle (Basel, Basel Afrika Bibliographien, 2014).

21 Walker, ‘Gender and the Development of the Migrant Labour System’.

22 D. Coplan, In Township Tonight! South Africa’s Black City Music and Theatre (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2007 [1985]).

23 D. Coplan, In the Time of Cannibals: The Word Music of South Africa’s Basotho Migrants (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1994).

24 J. Guy, ‘Gender Oppression in Southern Africa’s Pre-Capitalist Societies’, in Walker (ed.), Women and Gender in Southern Africa to 1945, pp. 33–48.

25 For more on the history of the Kavango hunters, see: M. Fisch, The World of the Traditional Hunters along the Kavango River (Windhoek, Macmillan, 2008); S. Kapirika, Mbeli: dimutango daRugciriku (Windhoek, Gamsberg Macmillan, 1993), p. 198.

26 Taboos were observed by women within the migrant labourer’s homestead and extended beyond the sole duties of his wife.

27 Interview with R. Kanguro, Kehemu, 18 January 2020.

28 Interview with B.S. Katota, Mabushe, 12 August 2009.

29 Interview with V. Mbandje, Katere, 2008.

30 Interview with R. Kanguro, Kehemu, 18 January 2020.

31 M. Caley, ‘A Study of Vakwangali Traditional Clothing for Fashion Creation in Namibia’ (MA dissertation, University of Namibia, 2020).

32 E. Brink, ‘Man-Made Women: Gender, Class and the Ideology of the Volksmoeder’, in Walker (ed.), Women and Gender in Southern Africa to 1945, pp. 273–92.

33 Ibid.

34 Shiweda, ‘Omhedi’, p. 150.

35 An assertion that the concept ‘place’ is associated with firmness, the law of the proper and the exact, fixed location is articulated in Shiweda, ‘Omhedi’, p. 10.

36 Walker, ‘Gender and the Development of the Migrant Labour System’.

37 National Archives of Namibia (NAN) NAT 22/31: Magistrate Grootfontein to Officer in Charge of Natives Affairs, Tsumeb ‘Influx of Native Women to Tsumeb’, 23 August 1937.

38 Shiweda, ‘Omhedi’.

39 Ibid.

40 P. Hayes, ‘Cocky Hahn and the Black Venus: The Making of a Native Commissioner in South West Africa, 1915–46’, Gender and History, 8, 3 (1996), p. 372.

41 NAN NAT 22/31: Native Commissioner, Ovamboland (Hahn) to Magistrate Grootfontein, ‘Re: Unemployed Native Women, Tsumeb Urban Area’ – 23 March 1937.

42 NAN NAT 22/31: Officer in Charge of Natives Affairs, Tsumeb to Officer in Charge of Native Affairs, Ondangwa, ‘Lucia Helemia Charged for Entering Urban Area Without a Certificate’ – 12 January 1938.

43 NAN NAR 1/1/55, file 11/1: Langhans Kanyinga, ‘Declaration’ – 22 January 1936. For more discussions on native recruiters, see K. Likuwa and N. Shiweda, ‘Native Recruiters’ Activities along the Kavango River Boundary in North-East Namibia, 1925–1943’, Journal of Namibian Studies, 23 (2018), pp. 87–100.

44 NAN NAR 1/1/55, file 11/1: Langhans Kanyinga, ‘Declaration’ – 22 January 1936.

45 Interview with G. Kaundu, Kehemu, 11 February 2020.

46 H. Becker, ‘A Concise History of Gender, Tradition and the State in Namibia’, in C. Keulder (ed.), State, Society and Democracy: A Reader in Namibian Politics (Windhoek, Konrad Adeneur Stiftung, 2010), pp. 181–2.

47 Hayes, ‘A History of the Owambo of Namibia’, p. 288.

48 Interview with A.K. Maliti, Ndiyona, 11 February 2020.

49 Caley, ‘A Study of Vakwangali Traditional Clothing’.

50 Ibid.

51 Interview with B.L. Shampapi, Ndiyona, 18 January 2020.

52 Interview with R. Kanguro, Kehemu, 18 January 2020.

53 Interview with G.N. Weka, Rucara, 29 July 2009.

54 Caley, ‘A Study of Vakwangali Traditional Clothing’.

55 Interview with P. Namwere, Kehemu, 18 January 2020.

56 Similarly, in South Africa, some Indian male migrants left their wives in the households of their brothers or fathers during their absence. See U. Dhupelia-Mesthrie, ‘Split-Households: Indian Wives, Cape Town Husbands and Immigration Laws, 1900s to 1940s’, South African Historical Journal, 66, 4 (2014), pp. 635–55.

57 See, for example, NAN NAO 93 File 42/2: Magistrate Grootfontein to Native Commissioner, Ondangwa, ‘Complaint by Imelia Kandi against Leonard Juuso’ – 27 January 1949.

58 Interview with R. Kanguro, Kehemu, 18 January 2020.

59 Bonner, ‘Desirable or Undesirable Basotho women?’, p. 239.

60 Interview with B.L. Shampapi, Ndiyona, 18 January 2020.

61 For more on estate distribution of contract labourers in Namibia, see Namhila, ‘Record Keeping and Missing “Native Estate” Records’.

62 Interview with V. Mbandje, Katere, 2008.

63 For more on Portuguese control in ‘Tjaisa’ (Portuguese-controlled settlements), see I. Brinkman, ‘Town, Village and Bush: War and Cultural Landscapes in South-Eastern Angola (1966–2002)’, Africa Focus, 25, 2 (2012), p. 35.

64 Interview with F.T. Shevekwa, Sharuwanda, 30 July 2009.

65 NAN NAO 93 file 42/2: Magistrate Lüderitz to Native Commissioner, Ondangwa, ‘Complaints by Local Natives against Natives in the Police Zone’ – 3 August 1953.

66 For similar cases in Ovamboland, see M. McKittrick, ‘Reinventing the Family: Kinship, Marriage, and Famine in Northern Namibia, 1948–1954’, Social Science History, 21, 3 (1997), pp. 265–95.

67 NAN NAO 93 file 42/2: Native Commissioner, Rundu to Magistrate, Mariental, ‘Complaints by Local Natives against Natives in the Police Zone’ – 19 December 1949. Contract labourers from Kavango could be sent throughout the territory. Mariental, for example, almost 1,000 kilometres south of Rundu, is a nodal point for the sheep farming sector and home a large rail yard.

68 See E. Gordon, ‘Women Left Behind: A Study of the Wives of the Migrant Workers of Lesotho’, International Labour Organisation Working Paper (Geneva, ILO, 1978).

69 Interview with Kamenye Likuwa, Kangweru, 13 August 2009.

70 Walker, ‘Gender and the Development of the Migrant Labour System’.

71 See NAN NAO 093 File 42/2: Officer in Charge of Natives Affairs, Tsumeb to Officer in Charge of Native Affairs, Oshikango, ‘Application by Mrs. K. Arends to Take a Native Girl to Tsumeb for a Few Months’ – 1 August 1940.

72 Interview with M. Muduva, Ndiyona, 2008.

73 Interview with P. Namwere, Kehemu, 18 January 2020.

74 Ibid.

75 For discussions on co-operation between UNITA and SWAPO in the 1960s, see V.A. Shigwedha, ‘The Relationship between UNITA and SWAPO: Allies and Adversaries’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 40, 6 (2014), pp. 1275–87.

76 Interview with T. Shidona, Guma, 11 August 2009.

77 Interview with B.L. Shampapi, Ndiyona, 28 July 2009.

78 Chicago Committee for African Liberation, This Is the Time: Interview with Two Namibian Women (Chicago, CCAL, 1977), pp. 15–16.

79 Likuwa, Voices from the Kavango.