Multicultural Lives, Defiance and Liberation Politics in Namibia: The Getzen-Kerina Family History

Abstract

A portrait of several generations of the Namibian Getzen-Kerina family reveals multicultural and cosmopolitan lives in this former German and South African colony of South West Africa. The lives and struggles of, in particular, Ida Getzen-Leinhos (alias Kaera, 1863–1926), Magdalena Getzen (alias Kasondoro, 1905–1977), and William Erich Getzen (alias Mburumba Kerina, b. 1932) provide a way to consider the complexity of central themes in Namibian history. With its strong roots in Herero society on the one hand and multicultural entanglements across the racial and ethnic divisions of segregated settler and apartheid society on the other hand, the Getzen-Kerina family history reflects subaltern experiences, networks, and worldviews that have shaped many Namibian families and influenced—often discretely—trajectories of defiance, antiracism, as well as anticolonial and antiapartheid resistance and liberation politics.