L’enclavement ethnique en Namibie. Du cloisonnement territorial à la structuration des identités

Abstract

Namibian territory has been structured according to a logic of enclosing during all its colonial history. The different powers,particularly the apartheid regime, neverstopped imposing their territorial ideology based on the idea of partitioning and exclusion of the African populations, at the scaleof the country as well as in the urban centres. Sometimes laid down by force, some-times wanted by communities seeking land and territorial attachment, the ethnical enclosing has not only shaped the space, butit has also profoundly structured the identities. Since 1990 and the attainment of independence of Namibia, the territory has been restructured and the boundaries of the former enclaves officially abolished. But the enclosing is enduring, both in space through the permanency of socio-economic disparities and in the collective representations ofgroups of population for whom it is still a founding element of their identity

Keywords

• enclosing
• ethnic group
• apartheid
• homeland
• territory
• identity