Remembering Jeremy Gale Silvester

Abstract

Jeremy Silvester died on 5 July 2021, aged 58, following a struggle with Covid-19. In the 1980s, while a doctoral student at the School of Oriental and African Studies, he was also a member of the London-based Namibia Support Committee. In 1994, he completed his Ph.D. on the history of land dispossession and labour recruitment in southern Namibia under South African colonialism. He subsequently became an academic at the University of Namibia in the 1990s, and thereafter director of the Museums Association of Namibia. In these capacities he supervised a number of students who subsequently occupied influential positions in the educational and heritage sectors; and he was also involved in the establishment of a number of new museums and archives. To commemorate his life, we convened a roundtable of his peers to reflect on his legacy as an academic and an activist in these various spheres.