Imagining the Post-Apartheid State

In northwest Namibia, people's political imagination offers a powerful insight into the post-apartheid state. Based on extensive anthropological fieldwork, this book focuses on the former South African apartheid regime and the present democratic government; it compares the perceptions and practices of state and customary forms of judicial administration, reflects upon the historical trajectory of a chieftaincy dispute in relation to the rooting of state power and examines everyday forms of belonging in the independent Namibian State. By elucidating the State through a focus on the social, historical and cultural processes that help constitute it, this study helps chart new territory for anthropology, and it contributes an ethnographic perspective to a wider set of interdisciplinary debates on the State and state processes.

List of Figures
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter 1. Imagining States
Chapter 2. State Imaginings
PART I: GOVERN-MENTALITY IN KAOKOLAND
Chapter 3. 'How Do You Feeling about Freedom'
Chapter 4. The Art of Being Governed
PART II: COURTS, LAWS, AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Chapter 5. In the Matter of The State v. Custom
Chapter 6. Judicial Statements
Chapter 7. Legal States of Imagination and their Effect                                        
PART III: CHIEFSHIP AND THE POST-APARTHEID STATE
Chapter 8. Making Politics, Making History
Chapter 9. 'Tradition', Authority and the State in Northern Kaokoland
Conclusion
Chapter 10. Towards an Ethnography of the (Namibian) State
Notes
References
Index