Space Is the Ultimate Luxury: Capitalists, Conservationists, and Ancestral Land in Namibia - Paperback

by Bernard C. Moore (Author), Luregn Lenggenhager (Author)

The Open Access publication of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation. This book explores the history, ecology, and society of a seemingly inhospitable stretch of land along the Orange River in southern Namibia. Here, a group of African farmers have succeeded against all odds to stay on their ancestral homeland through decades of colonialism and apartheid. The twenty-first century, however, has brought different people looking to evict them: nature conservationists. These farmers face off against billionaire gemstone mine owners, rhinoceros veterinarians and carbon finance executives, seeking to prove their legal and moral claims to their ancestral lands. This book reveals how we got here and what is at stake if they fail.

Author Biography

Bernard C. Moore, (PhD), is currently Lecturer of African History at Alma College in Michigan, USA. His research concerns the economic and environmental history of agriculture and land in southern Africa. He has previously taught history at Michigan State University and at the University of Namibia. Luregn Lenggenhager, (PhD), is an environmental historian, currently based at the Global South Studies Centre, University of Cologne. He has published on land, borders, and nature conservation in southern Africa, engaging with multispecies histories and political ecology. He is involved in collaborative research and teaching projects with the University of Basel and the University of Namibia.