This dissertation explores the practical challenges experienced in user services of
the post-colonial National Archives of Namibia (NAN) and the systemic trajectory
of their origin. It is motivated by the observation of anecdotal evidence that many
requests by Black Namibians for civic records such as divorce orders, adoption
records, and estate records from the period of colonial and apartheid rule in
Namibia cannot be served by the NAN despite intensive time-consuming searches,
while similar requests by White Namibians can be served without problems within
minutes. Further rationale originated in the observation that, while there is a
substantial body of literature about the problems of archives in decolonized
countries, this literature is primarily concerned with issues of current records
management, maintenance, preservation, staff training, and occasionally the
problem of migrated or entangled archives, while it rarely addresses the issue why
and how the colonial situation affected the content and accessibility of the archives
concerning the colonized persons.
This study employs a historical case study design, taking an in-depth exploration
of the colonizers’ records at the National Archives of the decolonized Namibia,
using deceased estate records of Black Namibians (or “Native estates” in
contemporary parlance) as a case study. It explores the colonial legal framework for
the creation and management of the estate records, the actual Native estate files in
custody of the NAN, as well as the finding aids, archives databases and the own
administrative files of the NAN. It explores the relationship between the historical
legal environment, the creation, management, disposal, listing, appraisal,
destruction, archiving, indexing and metadata enhancement of the Native estates
records over the colonial period, between1884 to 1990, and their alleged absence
from the NAN.
The study discovered a large but erratic corpus of 11,256 Native estate case files
which had been assumed destroyed or lost, but also established substantial gaps in
the holdings of Native estate records. Only few of those gaps could be explained
by documented destructions, but the study traces the causes for the loss of
substantial records to racially discriminatory legislation, a confusing and haphazard
legislative and regulatory framework for Native estates, and an all-pervasive
apartheid ideology that also affected the appraisal and the creation of discovery
tools at the Archives.
The dissertation concludes with a programme to “decolonize the archives”,
recommending to unlock the full potential of the previously hidden “Native”
records, not only by recording and indexing them in discovery tools but also by
enhancing search options to alleviate the search problems caused by
unstandardized name spellings and non-Western naming and kinship systems.
It is anticipated that this study will raise awareness about similar gaps, stir
debate and lead to further research about archival deficiencies with other types of
person-related records, in Namibia as well as in other decolonised nations, in order
to establish how far their national archival records are responsive to the needs of
all citizens.