Anti-colonial campaigns that use existing patriarchal norms to shame colonial regimes can narrow the liberation agenda for women. Based on court documents and oral histories conducted in Namibia, this article examines the corporal punishment of women in Ovamboland during the period of South African colonial occupation. Centred on the 1973 flogging of four female po...

Based on both archival research and oral interviews conducted in northern Namibia, this article traces the history of public flogging in Ovamboland throughout the twentieth century. In contrast to recent scholarship that views corporal punishment in modern Africa mainly through the lens of colonial governance, the article argues that because the South African colon...