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The Etosha Region in Namibia, comprising the famous Etosha National Park and its adjacent communal and commercial farm lands, has been a conte step region since the advent of colonial settlement. The centenary of the Etosha Park in 2007 provided an opportune moment for critical reflection on its history, a much-needed appraisal achieved by this book through its multiple perspectives. At the centre of this book are the Hai||om San and their long history of the dispossession and discrimination. Ute Dieckmann analyses with care the historical transformations. These were linked not only to the creation of the one of the largest nature conservation areas in Africa but also to the establishment of a settler state and society.

'National Culture in Post-Apartheid Namibia' addresses the challenges of creating a 'national' culture in the context of a historical legacy that has emphasised ethnic diversity. The state-sponsored Annual National Culture Festival (ANCF) focuses on the Kavango region in north-eastern Namibia. Akuupa critically examines the notion of Kavango-ness as a colonial construct and its subsequent reconstitution and appropriation. He analyses the way in which cultural representations are produced by local people in the postcolonial African context of nation building and national reconciliation by bringing visions of cosmopolitanism and modernity into critical dialogue with the colonial past. Competing cultural festivals are used as celebratory social spaces in which performers and local people participate whilst negotiating a sense of national belonging in an ongoing tension between the need to celebrate diversity, yet strive for unity. This is the first study to discuss the comprehensive role played by those cultural festivals, which were organised in the ethnic homelands during the time Namibia fell under South African control.