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Title From Labour Elites to Garveyites: West African Migrant Labour in Namibia, 1892'1925
Full text http://edoc.hu-berlin.de/18452/28739; http://dx.doi.org/10.18452/28102
Date 2021
Author(s) Lyon, William Blakemore
Abstract This article focuses on the aftermath of the First World War for West African Kru in colonial Namibia. It posits that Kru had been a 'labour elite' in the colony under German rule and that the war and resulting years of South African occupation led to their economic decline. By the early 1920s, this situation was a strong factor in West Africans' robust engagement and leadership within the colony's 'Africa for the Africans' Garveyite movement. Economic troubles after the First World War, as well as an increasing tendency towards intermarriage between Kru and local Namibians, factored into Kru workers' decisions to join political ranks with the Herero and other groups who had suffered under German rule. Both local and migrant Africans saw Garveyism as a possible solution for their new economic and societal challenges. The article utilises a South West African migrant worker database that I compiled for this research (WBL Namibian Worker Database) and micro-histories to give insight into individual workers' experiences between 1892 and 1925. On a broader note, this work expands research on the role of West African labour in colonial Namibia, bringing regional historiography more firmly into the scope of the discipline of global history. - Peer Reviewed
Subject(s) Namibia; Kru; Garveyism; First World War; migrant labour; labour elite; Liberia; 1918 influenza pandemic; 960 Geschichte Afrikas; ddc:960
Language eng
Publisher Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Type of publication article; doc-type:article; publishedVersion
Format application/pdf
Rights (CC BY 4.0) Attribution 4.0 International; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Identifier urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-110-18452/28739-6; 1465-3893; 10.1080/03057070.2021.1851972
Repository Berlin - Humboldt University of Berlin
Added to C-A: 2024-01-22;09:06:50