Abstract:
The urbanisation and housing crisis in contemporary Namibia has been the subject of intense
debates in recent years. Much of these debates have focused on the post-independence
government, which has been blamed for inadequate policies and lack of political to provide
adequate houses for its citizens. Many observers saw the housing crisis as yet another
instance of corruption and nepotism within the government and property development
institutions in the country. Such a narrative has come to dominate both public and private
spaces, leading to social agitation and the formation of a social movement – the Affirmative
Reposition (AR), which has positioned itself as people‘ saviour.
This thesis has analysed the urbanisation and housing crisis, and attempts to take the
discussion beyond this simplistic perspective, thus filling a gap in housing debates in the
country by focusing on the bigger picture. It questions the ‗state is to blame‘ narrative for
being reductive – reducing all post-independence development problems to the state. By
questioning the current narrative on the housing crisis, the analysis adopted a broad historical
and political economy approach, and views the housing provision crisis as having both
historical and post-independence roots.
The central aim of the thesis was therefore to offer a counter narrative to the foregoing
narrative on the housing crisis by offering a deeper analysis of both historical and postindependence factors that contributed to the crisis, and to link the crisis to the broader
African development question. This was done through a number of stages: First, through an
analysis of the colonial historical context and its implications for post-independence
development; second, by analysing phenomena after independence that resulted from the fall
of colonialism; and finally, by analysing realities of the people in urban areas. The approach
adopted for the analysis of the housing crisis was therefore grounded on discourses of
Africa‘s development crisis, including those of economic collapse and ‗failed‘ or vampire‘
states.
More specifically, the analysis explored the role played by the colonial history and the crisis
of expectations after independence. The analysis pointed to many factors that contributed to
the housing crisis after Namibia‘s independence, but also argues that apportioning the blame for the crisis to the post-independence government is rather reductive and has resulted in
limited and incomplete understanding of the housing crisis.
The analysis suggests that the country‘s settler period should be a critical starting point to
understanding the post-independence housing crisis. By focusing attention on the postindependence government and placing the blame for the housing crisis directly at its door
steps, it is easy to end up neglecting historical factors and their consequential effects and
manifestations after independence. These are not peculiar to Namibia, but have also been
experienced in other post-colonial states in the region. These were often responsible for the
demands, expectations and challenges that were encountered after independence, which any
explanation that focuses on the government and its failures fail to fully explain.
