Veterinary History in Southern Africa

Abstract

Southern Africa’s veterinary history underwent different epochs ranging from pre-colonial to colonial and post-colonial stages. Changes within the Southern African livestock economies were informed by changing animal-human relations over time that characterized such phases as pastoralism; the rise of more sedentary livelihoods; the rise of colonial economies that depended on livestock for transport, draught power, and the creation of beef industries; and finally, the sustenance of such colonial structures in post-colonial settings punctuated by economic collapse and political volatility. Despite a potpourri of post-colonial administrative systems and a variety of colonial experiences ranging from settler colonies and peasant-agricultural colonies to concession company colonies, the trajectory of veterinary history in post-colonial Southern Africa is generally uniform. Veterinary sources are scarce for the pre-colonial period, and when they become relatively abundant in the colonial and post-colonial periods, there is a general bias toward biomedical approaches rather than African livestock regimes. In historiography, the trajectory has generally followed that of African history, from colonial history to Africanist historiography and, finally, revisionist and environmental discourses. Each of these analytical approaches has its own intrinsic weaknesses, yet in their various ways they have contributed to and enriched conversations around veterinary issues in Southern Africa.