ETHNOLOGISTS IN CAMOUFLAGE, introducing apartheid to Namibia

186pp., paperback, UNAM Press, Windhoek, 2021

ISBN: 9789991642765

First published internationally by Beghahn Books in 2021 under the title South Africa's Dreams: Ethnologists and Apartheid in Namibia.

Robert Gordon examines South Africa's administration of South West Africa/ Namibia from the 1950s onwards, and the role of certain ethnologists such as Professor Johannes Petrus Van Schalkwyk Bruwer and his followers, who promoted tribal and ethnic identities and the volkekunde discourse, used to legitimate Bantustan policy by exaggerating cultural differences.

Gordon also demonstrates how South Africa’s experiences in Namibia influenced later policy at home, and how the geopolitical formations of the time shaped the work of these ‘experts’, rendering certain situations visible, while making others invisible.

"Having lived through much of the time discussed in this book in South Africa and being aware of the political and academic implications of white politics and of the politics of anthropology, I found this book highly engaging, confrontational of white conservatism and racism and justly devastating of expertise gone wrong." C. S. van der Waal, Stellenbosch University

“Gordon’s treatise is an overdue and valuable contribution to the history of apartheid – a history of moral, academic and intellectual dissonance which deserves to be read widely in Namibia. What looks like another elaboration on a dry academic topic is presented by Gordon as an exciting read, full of brilliant poignancy and deconstruction of an unsavoury aspect of the German-Namibian-South African (hi)story.” The Namibian

Robert Gordon was born and grew up in Namibia. He has taught critical anthropology at numerous universities, and is currently Emeritus Professor at the University of Vermont and a Research Fellow at the University of the Free State. His books include Going Abroad: Travelling like an Anthropologist (2010) and most recently The Enigma of Max Gluckman: The Ethnographic Life of ‘Luckyman’ in Africa(2018).