On and off since 1992 I have been fortunate to carry out research in Namibia, focusing on socio-ecological relations, colonialism and conservation. Currently I am UK Principal Investigator for Etosha-Kunene Histories, with colleagues at the University of Namibia and the University of Cologne.
Here I share work carried out over the years that focuses on Namibia specifically.
Forthcoming
Sullivan, S., !Uriǂkhob, S., Kötting, B., Muntifering, J. and Brett, R. forthcoming. Historicising black rhino in Namibia: from indigenous and colonial hunting, to conservation custodianship, in Bollig, M. and Anderson, D. Conservation in East and Southern Africa: People, Policy, Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2023
Hannis, M. and Sullivan, S. 2023 Extraction old and new: Toxic legacies of mining the desert in southwestern Africa, pp. 23-34 in Elizabeth Kryder-Reid and Sarah May (eds.) Toxic Heritage: Legacies, Futures, and Environmental Injustice. London: Routledge,
Hewitson, L. and Sullivan, S. 2023 Producing elephant commodities for ‘conservation hunting’ in Namibian communal-area conservancies, pp. 277-304 in Bollig, M., Lendelvo, S., Mosimane, A., and Nghitevelekwa, R. (eds.) Conservation, Markets and the Environment in Southern and Eastern Africa: Commodifying the ‘Wild’. Oxford: James Currey, https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.3643592.17
2022
Sullivan, S. and Ganuses, W.S. 2022 !Nara harvesters of the Northern Namib: a cultural history through three photographed encounters.
Journal of the Namibian Scientific Society 69: 115-139,Special Issue “Gobabeb@60”, edited by Scott Turner.
Sullivan, S. Maps and memory, rights and relationships: articulations of global modernity and local dwelling in delineating land for a communal-area conservancy in north-west Namibia | Cartes et mémoire, droits et relations: articulations de la modernité globale et des dynamiques locales dans la délimitation territoriale des aires de conservation communales au Nord-Ouest de la Namibie (trans. B. Bacle). Conserveries Mémorielles: Revue Transdisciplinaire 25 Special Issue ‘Disrupted Histories, Recovered Pasts | Histoires Perturbées, Passés Retrouvés’, edited by Sullivan, S., Baussant, M., Dodd, L., Otele, O. and Dos Santos, I. [links to preprints]
Olwage, E., with Sullivan, S., Dieckmann, U. and Lendelvo, S. 2022 Etosha-Kunene Histories: A Weave of Prior Work – Entangled and Contested Pasts, Lands and ‘Natures’ in Post-colonial Namibia. Etosha-Kunene Histories Special Report 1, ISBN: 978-1-911126-21-8
Koot., S., Hebinck, P. and Sullivan, S. 2022 Conservation research and discursive violence: a response to two rejoinders. Society and Natural Resources.
2021
Sullivan, S. and Ganuses, W.S. 2021 Densities of meaning in west Namibian landscapes: genealogies, ancestral agencies, and healing, pp. 139-190 in Dieckmann, U. (ed.) Mapping the Unmappable? Cartographic Explorations with Indigenous Peoples in Africa. Bielefeld: Transcript. DOI: 10.14361/9783839452417-006
Sullivan, S. and Ganuses, W.S. 2021 Recomposing the archive? On sound and (hi)story in Damara / ǂNūkhoe pasts, from Basel to west Namibia. Oral History Journal 49(2): 95-108, Special Issue on ‘Power and the archives’.
Sullivan, S., !Uriǂkhob, S., Kötting, B., Muntifering, J. and Brett, R. 2021 Historicising black rhino in Namibia: colonial-era hunting, conservation custodianship, and plural values. Future Pasts Working Paper Series 13 https://www.futurepasts.net/fpwp13-sullivan-urikhob-kotting-muntifering-brett-2021 ISBN: 978-1-911126-18-8
Sullivan, S. 2021 Cultural heritage and histories of the Northern Namib: historical and oral history observations for the Draft Management Plan, Skeleton Coast National Park 2021/2022-2030/2031 Future Pasts Working Paper Series 12 https://www.futurepasts.net/fpwp12-sullivan-2021 ISBN: 978-1-911126-17-1
Sullivan, S. 2021 I’m Sian, and I’m a fossil fuel addict: paradox, disavowal and (im)possibility in changing climate change, pp. 139-156 in Böhm, S. and Sullivan, S. (eds.) Negotiating Climate Change in Crisis. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers.
Rohde, R., Hoffman, M.T. and Sullivan, S. 2021 Climate change complexity: repeat landscape photographs of the pro-Namib and Namib desert, pp. 173-187 in Böhm, S. and Sullivan, S. (eds.) in press. Negotiating Climate Change in Crisis. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers.
Hewitson, L. & Sullivan, S. 2021 Producing elephant commodities for ‘conservation hunting’ in Namibian communal-area conservancies. Journal of Political Ecology 28: 1-24. https://doi.org/10.2458/jpe.2279
Media: Cruise, A. 2021 Trophy hunting elephants: New study highlights tensions in commodifying wildlife for community-based conservation in Namibia. Journal of African Elephants 8 April 2021
ǁGaroes, T.M. 2021. A forgotten case of the ǂNūkhoen / Damara people added to colonial German genocidal crimes in Namibia: we cannot fight the lightning during the rain. (ed. by Sullivan, S.) Future Pasts Working Paper Series 11 https://www.futurepasts.net/fpwp11-garoes-2021
Reported in The Namibian newspaper here: https://www.namibian.com.na/germany-must-show-more-remorse-for-genocide/
Sullivan, S., Ganuses, W.S., Olivier, E. and ǁHawaxab, F. 2022[2021] Tasting the lost flute music of Sesfontein: histories, memories, possibilities. Future Pasts Working Paper Series 10 https://www.futurepasts.net/fpwp10-sullivan-ganuses-olivier-hawaxab-2022 ISBN 978-1-911126-20-1 (v1, 2021 ISBN 978-1-911126-13-3)
2020
Lendelvo, S., Mechtilde, P. and Sullivan, S. 2020 A perfect storm? COVID-19 and community-based conservation in Namibia. Namibian Journal of Environment 4(B): 1-15.
Media: Conservation Namibia blog, ‘Communal Conservancies Cry for Help to Survive Coronavirus “Perfect Storm”’, 10 July 2020
Sullivan, S. and Ganuses, W.S. 2020 Understanding Damara / ǂNūkhoen and ǁUbun indigeneity and marginalisation in Namibia, pp. 283-324 in Odendaal, W. and Werner, W. (eds.) ‘Neither Here Nor There’: Indigeneity, Marginalisation and Land Rights in Post-independence Namibia. Windhoek: Land, Environment and Development Project, Legal Assistance Centre. ISBN 978-99945-61-58-2 http://www.lac.org.na/projects/lead/Pdf/neither-13.pdf
Koot, S., Hebinck, P. and Sullivan, S. 2020 Science for Success – A Conflict of Interest? Researcher Position and Reflexivity in Socio-ecological Research for CBNRM in Namibia. Society and Natural Resources.
Media: summarised in online article – Pinnock, D. 2021 A question of bias: Trophy hunting is a contentious industry and shaping research to get a desired outcome doesn’t help. Daily Maverick 18 October.
+ Response to article rejoinders Koot., S., Hebinck, P. and Sullivan, S. 2022 Conservation research and discursive violence: a response to two rejoinders.’ Society and Natural Resources.
!Uriǂkhob, S. 2020 Attitudes and perceptions of local communities towards the reintroduction of black rhino (Diceros bicornis bicornis) into their historical range in northwest Kunene Region, Namibia: a Masters Dissertation from 2004. With a Foreword by Sian Sullivan and Jeff Muntifering, ‘Historicising black rhino in west Namibia’. Future Pasts Working Paper Series 8 https://www.futurepasts.net/fpwp8-urikhob-sullivan-muntife-2020 ISBN: 978-1-911126-11-9
2019
Sullivan, S., Ganuses, WS., Hannis, M., Impey, A., Low, C. and Rohde, R. 2019[2017] Future Pasts: Landscape, Memory and Music in West Namibia. 2nd edn. Bath: Future Pasts. ISBN 978-1-911126-14-0
Sullivan, S. 2019 Towards a metaphysics of the soul and a participatory aesthetics of life: mobilising Foucault, affect and animism for caring practices of existence. New Formations: A Journal of Culture, Theory & Politics 95(3): 5-21.
Sullivan, S. 2019 Maps and memory, rights and relationships: articulations of global modernity and local dwelling in delineating land for a communal-area conservancy in north-west Namibia. Future Pasts Working Paper Series 7 https://www.futurepasts.net/fpwp7-sullivan-2019
Sullivan, S., Ganuses, W.S., |Nuab, F. and senior members of Sesfontein and Anabeb Conservancies 2019 Damara / ǂNūkhoen and ǁUbun Cultural Landscapes Mapping, West Namibia, in progress report to Namidaman Traditional Authority, Sesfontein. Bath: Future Pasts.
2018
Hannis, M. and Sullivan, S.2018 Relationality, reciprocity and flourishing in an African landscape, pp. 279-296 in Hartman, L.M. (ed.) That All May Flourish: Comparative Religious Environmental Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press.
Sullivan, S. 2018 Dissonant sustainabilities? Politicising and psychologising antagonisms in the conservation-development nexus. Future Pasts Working Paper Series 5 https://www.futurepasts.net/fpwp5-sullivan-2018
2017
Sullivan, S. and Homewood, K. 2017 On non-equilibrium and nomadism: knowledge, diversity and global modernity in drylands, pp. 115–168 in Pimbert, M. (ed.) Food Sovereignty, Agroecology and Biocultural Knowledge: Constructing and Contesting Knowledge. London: Routledge Studies in Food, Society and the Environment.
Sullivan, S. 2017 On ‘natural capital’, ‘fairy-tales’ and ideology. Invited Review Essay, Development and Change 48(2): 397-423. DOI: 10.1111/dech.12293
2016
Sullivan, S. 2016 What’s ontology got to do with it? Nature, knowledge and ‘the green economy’. Future Pasts Working Papers 3 https://www.futurepasts.net/fpwp3-sullivan-2016
Sullivan, S. and Hannis, M. 2016 Relationality, reciprocity and flourishing in an African landscape: perspectives on agency amongst ǁKhao-a Dama, !Narenin and ǁUbun elders in west Namibia. Future Pasts Working Papers 2 https://www.futurepasts.net/fpwp2-sullivan-hannis-2016
Sullivan, S. Hannis, M., Impey, A., Low, C. and Rohde, R.F. 2016 Future pasts? Sustainabilities in west Namibia – a conceptual framework for research. Future Pasts Working Papers 1 https://www.futurepasts.net/fpwp1-sullivan-et-al-2016 ISBN: 978-1-911126-03-4
2014
Sullivan, S. and Low, C. 2014 Shades of the rainbow serpent? A KhoeSān animal between myth and landscape in southern Africa – ethnographic contextualisations of rock art representations. The Arts 3(2): 215-244 (special issue on World Rock Art).
2013
Sullivan, S. 2013 After the green rush? Biodiversity offsets, uranium power and the ‘calculus of casualties’ in greening growth. Human Geography 6(1): 80-101, https://doi.org/10.1177/194277861300600106
2012
Sullivan, S. 2012 On dance and difference: bodies, movement and experience in Khoesān trance-dancing – perceptions of a ‘raver’, pp. 371-378 in Moodie, E. (ed.) Anthropology in a Changing World. New York: McGraw-Hill. Reprinted from Sullivan, S. 2001. Danza e diversità: copri, movimento ed esperienza nella trance-dance dei Khoisan e nei rave occidentali. (On dance and difference: bodies, movement and experience in Khoesān trance-dancing. Africa e Mediterraneo Cultura e Societa 37: 15-22.
2006
Sullivan, S. 2006 The elephant in the room? Problematizing ‘new’ (neoliberal) biodiversity conservation. Forum for Development Studies 33(1): 105-135.
2005
Sullivan, S. 2005 Detail and dogma, data and discourse: food-gathering by Damara herders and conservation in arid north-west Namibia, pp. 63-99 in Homewood, K. (ed.) Rural Resources and Local Livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa. Oxford: James Currey and University of Wisconsin Press.
2003
Sullivan, S. 2003 Protest, conflict and litigation: dissent or libel in resistance to a conservancy in north-west Namibia, pp. 69-86 in Berglund, E. and Anderson, D. (eds.) Ethnographies of Conservation: Environmentalism and the Distribution of Privilege. Oxford: Berghahn Press.
Sullivan, S. and Homewood, K. 2003 On non-equilibrium and nomadism: knowledge, diversity and global modernity in drylands (and beyond …). CSGR Working Paper 122/03. http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/csgr/research/workingpapers/2003/wp12203.pdf
2002
Sullivan, S. 2002 How sustainable is the communalising discourse of ‘new’ conservation? The masking of difference, inequality and aspiration in the fledgling ‘conservancies’ of Namibia, pp. 158-187 In Chatty, D. and Colchester, M. (eds.) Conservation and Mobile Indigenous people: Displacement, Forced Settlement and Sustainable Development. Oxford: Berghahn Press.
Sullivan, S. 2002 ‘How can the rain fall in this chaos?’ Myth and metaphor in representations of the north-west Namibian landscape, pp. 255-265, 315-317 in LeBeau, D. and Gordon, R.J. (eds.) Challenges for Anthropology in the ‘African Renaissance’: A Southern African Contribution. Windhoek: University of Namibia Press.
Sullivan, S. and Rohde, R. 2002 On non-equilibrium in arid and semi-arid grazing systems. Journal of Biogeography 29(12): 1595-1618. [11th most cited paper & authors for Journal of Biogeography in 2002]
Craven, P. and Sullivan, S. 2002 Inventory and review of ethnobotanical research in Namibia: first steps towards a central ‘register’ of published indigenous plant knowledge. NBRI Contributions 3. National Botanical Research Institute, Windhoek, https://herbaria.plants.ox.ac.uk/bol/Content/Projects/namibia/Resources/Craven_Sullivan_Ethnobotany.pdf
2001
Sullivan, S. 2001 Difference, identity and access to official discourses: Haiǁom, ‘Bushmen’, and a recent Namibian ethnography. Anthropos 96: 179-192.
Sullivan, S. 2001 Danza e diversità: copri, movimento ed esperienza nella trance-dance dei Khoisan e nei rave occidentali. (On dance and difference: bodies, movement and experience in Khoesān trance-dancing – perceptions of ‘a raver’). Africa e Mediterraneo Cultura e Societa 37: 15-22.
2000
Sullivan, S. 2000 Gender, ethnographic myths and community-based conservation in a former Namibian ‘homeland’, pp. 142-164 in Hodgson, D. (ed.) Rethinking Pastoralism in Africa: Gender, Culture and the Myth of the Patriarchal Pastoralist. Oxford: James Currey.
Sullivan, S. 2000 Getting the science right, or introducing science in the first place? Local ‘facts’, global discourse – ‘desertification’ in north-west Namibia, pp. 15-44 in Stott, P. and Sullivan, S. (eds.) Political Ecology: Science, Myth and Power. London: Edward Arnold.
1999
Sullivan, S. 1999 Folk and formal, local and national: Damara cultural knowledge and community-based conservation in southern Kunene, Namibia. Cimbebasia 15: 1-28.
Sullivan, S. 1999 The impacts of people and livestock on topographically diverse open wood-and shrub-lands in arid north-west Namibia. Global Ecology and Biogeography (Special Issue on ‘Degradation of Open Woodlands’) 8: 257-277.
Sullivan, S. 1999 Rural planning in Namibia: state-led initiatives and some rural realities. Appendix 3 in Dalal-Clayton, B. DfID-funded IIED overview of rural planning. London: International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).
1997
Sullivan, S. and Konstant, T.L. 1997 Human impacts on woody vegetation, and multivariate analysis: a case study based on data from Khowarib settlement, Kunene Region. Dinteria 25: 87-120.
1996
Sullivan, S. 1996 The ‘Communalization’ of Former Commercial Farmland: Perspectives From Damaraland and Implications for Land Reform. Windhoek: Social Sciences Division of the Multidisciplinary Research Centre, University of Namibia, Research Report 25.
Sullivan, S. 1996 Towards a non-equilibrium ecology: perspectives from an arid land. Journal of Biogeography 23: 1-5.
Sullivan, S. 1996 The relevance of traditional range and forestry management, and land tenure practices, for the in situ conservation of plant genetic resources in Namibia’s arid and semi-arid areas. Windhoek and Nairobi: National Botanic Research Institute (NBRI) and International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI).
1995
Sullivan, S., Konstant, T.L. and Cunningham, A.B. 1995 The impact of utilization of palm products on the population structure of the vegetable ivory palm (Hyphaene petersiana, Arecaceae) in north-central Namibia. Economic Botany 49(4): 357-370.
Konstant, T.L., Sullivan, S. and Cunningham, A.B. 1995 The effects of utilization by people and livestock on Hyphaene petersiana (Arecaceae) basketry resources in the palm savanna of north-central Namibia. Economic Botany 49(4): 345-356.