Qualla: Katutura

Katutura: Introduction

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sonse, CC BY 2.0. The name was chosen as an act of defiance. When the apartheid administration of South West Africa forcibly relocated Windhoek's Black residents to a barren tract of land 8 kilometers north of the city center in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the displaced communities named their new home Katutura -- Otjiherero for "the place where people do not want to live." More than sixty years later, the name endures, though the township has grown into a sprawling urban area that is home to a significant portion of Windhoek's population, complete with its own stadium, hospital, radio station, and political constituencies.

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Image: Sonse | CC BY 2.0

Katutura: What They Lost in the Move

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Foundert, CC BY-SA 3.0. The residents of Windhoek's Old Location had owned their land. Their plots were large enough for gardens. They walked to their jobs in the city center. Katutura stripped all of that away. The new plots were smaller, owned by the municipality rather than the residents, and far eno...

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Image: Foundert | CC BY-SA 3.0

Katutura: Ten December 1959

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Martin Hipangwa, CC BY-SA 4.0. Resistance came quickly. Residents of the Old Location organized a boycott of municipal services, refusing to cooperate with the forced removal. On 10 December 1959, police opened fire on the protesters. Eleven people were killed and forty-four wounded. The event is known as the ...

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Image: Martin Hipangwa | CC BY-SA 4.0

Katutura: A Township of Many Nations

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Martin Hipangwa, CC BY-SA 4.0. Katutura was never a monolith. A 1962 census recorded the diversity the apartheid system had tried to sort into tidy categories: nearly 3,000 Ovambo people, 2,366 Damara, 1,257 Coloured residents, 614 Nama, 468 Herero, 71 Ovambanderu, and over a thousand others. Each community br...

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Image: Martin Hipangwa | CC BY-SA 4.0

Katutura: A Name That Will Not Change

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dustytinashe, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 2019, activist Hendrich Amutenya launched a campaign to rename Katutura, arguing that its meaning carries a bad connotation for a free and independent Namibia. He proposed "Ubuntura" -- a portmanteau of ubuntu, the southern African philosophy of shared humanity, and Katutura. ...

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Image: Dustytinashe | CC BY-SA 4.0