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In light of recent interventions by artists and activists, this article explores key contestations around colonial monuments in today’s Namibia and asks not only what monuments can do but also what...

The article explores Mojisola Adebayo’s two-hander STARS (preliminary workshop performance, Ovalhouse, 2018) through the lens of Afrofuturism. The play will be discussed in regard to future-making technologies. By analysing the overt as well as subtle references to science fiction and its tropes, this article lays out how Afrofuturism informs the play and how it is formative in liberating the main character. Furthermore, questions of violence against women, forms of resistance, and the function of the imagination will be examined. Adebayo deftly weaves Afrofuturist concerns into the everyday experiences of marginalised groups who face discrimination and exclusion, irrespective of whether their marginalisation is based on culture, gender, or age. Through this, the play offers ways of dealing with bodily and historical trauma and exclusion, while simultaneously addressing violent and harmful practices and power relations. The play may be set in the present and deals with current issues, but its performance of the future – in regard to resistance and liberation – proves to be its central feature.

This paper looks at the novels by Joseph Diescho (Born of the Sun, 1988), Kaleni Hiyalwa (Meekulu’s Children, 2000), and Neshani Andreas (The Purple Violet of Oshaantu, 2001) with a special focus on the access to education and land, but also problems such as Gender Based Violence and poverty. By comparing how an independent Namibia is imagined during South African apartheid rule, during the Liberation Struggle, and post-independence, the novels open up perspectives that empirical studies may overlook or decide not to emphasise. Furthermore, this comparison also allows for a linear, yet non-chronological, view on how the literary visions evolve with concepts such as nation and liberation, but also modernity and nationalism as they ‘enter’ into the characters’ every day. With the protagonists deeply involved in the make-up of their respective villages, they can also be considered prototypical Namibians in their value systems and networks. Through their eyes, it is possible to trace how political promises that were envisioned and imagined prior to 1990 are either realised or disappointed.