The impact of migrant labour infrastructure on contract workers in and from colonial Ovamboland, Namibia

Abstract

This thesis explores the ways in which migrant labour infrastructure and the related operating practices of the South African colonial administration impacted on workers in and from the colonial north-central part of Namibia, formerly known as Ovamboland. This study stretches from the Union of South Africa’s occupation of the region in 1915 up to 1954 when the last Native Commissioner for Ovamboland completed his term of office and a new administrative phase began. Infrastructure refers to the essential facilities that an institution or communities install to use in order to connect or communicate.4 Vigne defines infrastructure as the mode of connections between techniques, practices, social values, cultures, economies and politics.5 This dissertation deals with two types of infrastructures.