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Exclusion and Inclusion

Gradations of Whiteness and Socio-Economic Engineering in German Southwest Africa, 1884-1914

by Robbie Aitken (Author)
©2007 Monographs 270 Pages
Series: Cultural Identity Studies, Volume 6

Summary

This book sets out to examine the internal workings of a colonial settler society drawing on aspects of post-colonial theory and whiteness studies. It focuses on the construction of a hierarchical social order in German Southwest Africa in the period 1884-1914. In doing so it explores the historical creation of categories of race and the construction of a concept of whiteness within white settler society in Germany’s foremost settler colony. In the colonial environment the presence of some settlers was deemed to be more desirable than others. As a consequence policies of exclusion and racial rhetoric were employed to exclude undesirable settlers from white society. What emerged was a pioneer society in which undesirable settlers were socially, politically and economically excluded whilst desirable settlers sought to forge a racially and culturally exclusive utopia. Based on extensive archival material from the Bundesarchiv in Berlin as well as a wide range of printed sources, the book presents an insight into strategies of social control, power, the establishment of social privilege and constructions of whiteness in a settler society.

Details

Pages
270
Publication Year
2007
ISBN (Softcover)
9783039110605
Language
English
Keywords
Namibia Siedler Ausgrenzung Weiße Geschichte 1884-1914 Social Control Whiteness Hierarchy Colonialism Deutsche Social Privilege
Published
Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Wien, 2007. 270 pp.
Product Safety
Peter Lang Group AG

Biographical notes

Robbie Aitken (Author)

The Author: Robbie Aitken graduated from the University of St Andrews, Scotland before gaining a doctorate in German Studies from the University of Liverpool in 2002. He is currently a Research Fellow in the German Department at the University of Liverpool.

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Title: Exclusion and Inclusion