SPACE IS THE ULTIMATE LUXURY, capitalists, conservationists and ancestral land in Namibia

371pp., b/w & colour illus., maps, paperback, First Namibian Edition, Mukorob Publishers, Windhoek, No Date

ISBN: 9789999880787

First published in Germany in 2025.

Through decades of colonialism and apartheid a group of African farmers have managed to stay on their ancestral lands in southern Namibia. Currently, however, these farmers find their claim to these lands threatened once again, this time from capitalist investors seeking to 'rewild' the territory for a high-wealth tourism clientele. 

"This is a book of history and anthropology, the past and the present. Effortlessly, the authors draw on academic fields as diverse as geology and biology, moulding reflections on deep-time and corporate green-washing into a single highly readable whole. The absences of diatribes and the cool understated approach of the text makes it all the more powerfully devastating. In fifteen short and succinct chapters the authors draw attention to the true inhabitants of the deep south of Namibia, delivering a volley of sucker-punches which make a mockery of the environmental claims of the mega-rich, be they mining executives, gap-year youth, corporate traders, or hunters." Jan-Bart Gewald, Professor of History, Leiden University

"This book analyses the complex intersections of capital, conservation, land, and identity in one of Namibia’s most expansive, ecologically and historically rich landscapes. This compelling narrative explores the tensions between individuals seeking large parcels of land for exclusive use, conservationists claiming to protect biodiversity, and local communities fighting to reclaim their ancestral land rights. It provides a thought-provoking analysis of this modern-day clash, and it is an important book for Namibia’s land question and conservation agenda." Romie Nghitevelekwa, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of Namibia

Bernard Moore is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Basel on the Curated Escapes and Derelict Landscapes in Times of Climate Change research project.

Historian and geographer Luregn Lenggenhager is Assistant Professor in the Centre for African Studies at the University of Basel, where he leads the Curated Escapes and Derelict Landscapes in Times of Climate Change research project.