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Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses photographs with the help of various sources to bring the complex experiences of Ovambo laborers to the fore. Individual desires, consumerism, religion, changing social status and leisure are aspects that will be explored to center Ovambo individuals in Namibian Historiography.

Paper long abstract:

In Namibian historiography, labor has taken a prominent role, especially in relation to the origins of the independence movement. However, in research focusing on the German colonial era, labor has often been analyzed through the lens of African victimhood and the predatory nature of colonial capitalism (Strassegger 1988; Clarence-Smith and Moorsom 1988; Press 2021). Photographic sources, when used at all, are often only illustrations in that context.

I draw from Global History, which examines colonial capitalism as a fluctuating realm in which African workers use new opportunities to improve their socio-economic status, as well as suffer under new methods of extraction (Bellucci and Eckert 2019). To this perspective I bring in photography to expand and deepen the analysis. Some modern Namibian historiography has explored the diverse realities of labor within the colonial capitalist sphere (Dobler 2014; McKittrick 1996; Likuwa 2021; Lyon 2021; Moore et al. 2021). However, new methods of combining visual, textual and oral sources have not been implemented in the context of Ovambo labor during German colonialism. This paper examines photos of laborers leaving, working, and returning from contract labor in the settler region of colonial Namibia between 1907 and 1914. The photos will be analyzed with the help of colonial, missionary, and business archival sources, as well as newspapers and oral histories. Individual desires, consumerism, religion, changing social status, leisure, and interpersonal relations will all be explored to bring multifaceted Ovambo experiences to the fore.