Shaping the African Savannah : From Capitalist Frontier to Arid Eden in Namibia

A history of 150 years of social-ecological transformations in one of southern Africa's most sought after exotic tourism destinations, often dubbed as 'Arid Eden'. It demonstrates the impacts of colonialism, capitalism and creative local adaptations of environmental infrastructures in the region.

The southern African savannah landscape has been framed as an ''Arid Eden'' in recent literature, as one of Africa''s most sought after exotic tourism destinations by twenty-first century travellers, as a ''last frontier'' by early twentieth-century travellers and as an ancient ancestral land by Namibia''s Herero communities. In this 150-year history of the region, Michael Bollig looks at how this ''Arid Eden'' came into being, how this ''last frontier'' was construed, and how local pastoralists relate to the landscape. Putting the intricate and changing relations between humans, arid savannah grasslands and its co-evolving animal inhabitants at the centre of his analysis, this history of material relations, of power struggles between commercial hunters and wildlife, between wealthy cattle patrons and foraging clients, between established homesteads and recent migrants, conservationists and pastoralists. Finally, Bollig highlights how futures are being aspired to and planned for between the increasing challenges of climate change, global demands for cheap ores and quests for biodiversity conservation.