This essay attempts, by means of intercultural hermeneutics, to contribute towards conflict anamnesis with regard to the current land debate in Namibia. The dynamics of how ‘land’ was conceptualized in various historical phases is analysed by means of close reading of source texts. The colonial encounter forged a linkage between African concepts of communal identity and land. But this process can be regarded as forced adoption of a European – even German – concept. Deprivation of land, and the labour migration system installed by the apartheid regime, led to petrification of this existentialist idea of land, but in a deprivatory, negativistic manner which, during the resistance and liberation struggle, was furthermore smelted with biblical readings of postcolonial identity and a marxist understanding of ‘land’ that remains to this day. The quest for land became the central, symbolic expression of true liberation, irrespective of its actual economic relevance. The essay argues that the demystification of this multiple territorialization of identity is a precondition for any viable conflict resolution of the current land issue. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English (p. 192-193), text in German. [Journal abstract]
