Diamond Warriors in Colonial Namibia

Diamond Warriors in Colonial Namibia enters
into unchartered scholarly territory of illegal diamond smuggling at
the largest diamond mining company in colonial Namibia-De Beers’
Consolidated Diamond Mines of South West Africa (CDM). It details the
underground activities of the natives (migrant workers) employed by the
CDM and how these illicit activities accounted for rapid development in
Owamboland. Beyond this account, the book takes on the deterministic
‘natural resource curse’ theory that equates natural resource endowments
to a curse resulting in underdevelopment and sometimes conflict. It is
argued and proven herein, from a decolonial standpoint, that such an
approach is an oversimplification of the political economy of natural
resources in Africa in general and Namibia in particular. The text also
provides a contextual account of the contract labour system and details
the symbiotic relationship between CDM and the colonial state before
highlighting the remaining unanswered questions and areas of further
research.