Exclusion and Inclusion: Gradations of Whiteness and Socio-Economic Engineering in German Southwest Africa, 1884-1914 (Cultural Identity Studies)

Aitken, Robbie

ISBN 10: 3039110608 / ISBN 13: 9783039110605

Published by Peter Lang AG, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, 2007

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Seller Inventory # ria9783039110605_new

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Exclusion and Inclusion: Gradations of Whiteness and Socio-Economic Engineering in German Southwest Africa, 1884-1914 (Cultural Identity Studies)
• Publisher: Peter Lang AG, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften
• Publication Date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3039110608
• ISBN 13: 9783039110605
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

This book sets out to examine the internal workings of a colonial settler society drawing on aspects of post-colonial theory and whiteness studies. It focuses on the construction of a hierarchical social order in German Southwest Africa in the period 1884-1914. In doing so it explores the historical creation of categories of race and the construction of a concept of whiteness within white settler society in Germany’s foremost settler colony. In the colonial environment the presence of some settlers was deemed to be more desirable than others. As a consequence policies of exclusion and racial rhetoric were employed to exclude undesirable settlers from white society. What emerged was a pioneer society in which undesirable settlers were socially, politically and economically excluded whilst desirable settlers sought to forge a racially and culturally exclusive utopia. Based on extensive archival material from the Bundesarchiv in Berlin as well as a wide range of printed sources, the book presents an insight into strategies of social control, power, the establishment of social privilege and constructions of whiteness in a settler society.

About the Author

The Author: Robbie Aitken graduated from the University of St Andrews, Scotland before gaining a doctorate in German Studies from the University of Liverpool in 2002. He is currently a Research Fellow in the German Department at the University of Liverpool.