Sharing Knowledge, Preserving Heritage of the Namibian Khwe

  • Wednesday 18 November 2026
  • 7:00 pm - 9:30 pm
  • Namibia Scientific Society, 110 Robert Mugabe Ave, Windhoek, Namibia

Sharing Knowledge, Preserving Heritage: Results of a collaborative project with Namibian Khwe

The Oswin Köhler Archive at the Goethe University Frankfurt houses the world’s largest collection of documents on the language and culture of the Indigenous Khwe people, most of whom live in Namibia’s Bwabwata National Park.

The documents were compiled between 1959 and 1992 by Khwe sources and their scholar, the German Africanist Oswin Köhler. Over the past ten years, these materials have been further developed and adapted in collaboration with members of the Khwe community, resulting in a diverse range of resources designed to help younger generations of the Khwe learn their language and culture, and a database that accommodates Khwe voices and norms.

The collaborative process and its results will be presented jointly by Dr Gertrud Boden and members of the Bwabwata Khwe Custodian Committee.

About the speaker: Gertrud Boden holds a PhD from the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Cologne.

Already during her PhD research on social change among the Khwe in today’s Bwabwata National Park at the turn of the millennium (1998-2003), Khwe asked her for opportunities to access the photos and documents that Oswin Köhler had brought to Germany.

After an absence period during which she worked on diverse subjects among other San communities with only occasional visits to the Khwe, she started to work on the academic legacy of Oswin Köhler in 2015. Since then, she edited the up-to-then missing volumes of a vernacular encyclopaedia on Khwe culture together with Anne-Maria Fehn and with assistance from native speaker Thaddeus Chedau, organised visits of Khwe representatives to Frankfurt, and facilitated collaborative work in Namibia and the development of several products for Khwe use.

 

📅 Date: Wednesday, 18 November 2026
🕖 Time: 19:00
📍 Location: Namibia Scientific Society, Windhoek

Join the presentation via Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/8023841980

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