Representing Namibian development

Abstract

No abstract provided. The following is taken from the author's introduction:

The main concerns of this paper, however, are less ambitious than the entire range of issues brought to the fore by the Epupa project. The paper has three specific objectives. First, it aims to analyse various representations in the Epupa debate - representations of development, the project and the OvaHimba. Second, it attempts to explore aspects of Himba agency in the development process. Finally, the paper reflects on the Epupa case in order to evaluate aspects of the post structuralist critique of development

In the following chapter, I will review and criticise the post-structuralist critique of development. Such criticism will serve as a platform from which to investigate the debate surrounding the proposed Lower Kunene Hydropower Scheme. In chapter three, I present a brief historical overview of Kunene River development and detail some of the more recent events surrounding the Epupa project's feasibility study period. In chapter four, as a way to understand the contested nature of the project, I contextualise it within a set of competing discourses and reveal the representations of various interest groups. Chapter five focuses on the Himba people specifically and works toward an understanding of the affected community in relation to the dynamics of the debate. It also looks at some of the ways Himba people have actively asserted their opposition to the dam. Finally, in the concluding chapter, I return to the post- structuralist critique, but this time in direct relation to the Epupa scheme. I will argue that, as originally suggested, the critique offers us an overly-simplistic interpretation of the development process. Likewise, the analysis highlights the need for a more thorough (and insightful) anthropology of development and a greater understanding into the dynamics shaping the Epupa project