Facing Barbarians: A Narrative of Spatial Segregation in Colonial Namibia

Abstract

Under South African rule Namibia was divided by a border into two territorial entities, both physically and symbolically. This article explores the establishment of this border, the so-called Red Line, which separated the settler society's heartland in central Namibia from the ‘native territories’ in the far north. Beginning as a mere cartographic construction, the Red Line eventually materialised in a double fence. I argue that veterinary science and practice played a pivotal role in the discursive and material enforcement of the resulting territorial segregation, and this case study exemplifies how segregation based on medical, i.e. veterinary, grounds transmuted into political segregation. Drawing from a broad scholarly debate on border histories I also argue for an interpretation that qualifies the Red Line as an imperial barbarian border. Accordingly, white settlers conceptualised the inner-Namibian border of the Red Line as the limit of an expanding South African settler society. Beyond that border they faced black Africa.