Mules, Global Networks, and Settler Colonialism in German Southwest Africa, 1884–1915

The employment of mules and the networks supplying them to German Southwest Africa (1884–1915, modern-day Namibia) are at the centre of this article. Mules are infertile and difficult to breed yet of use specifically in disease-prone and arid environments. In German Southwest Africa, Germany’s first and only settler colony, colonists depended on them to cross the Namib Desert, construct infrastructure and fight wars. To supply them, officials tapped into existing global animal networks with mule imports mainly arriving from the Cape Colony/South Africa and Argentina. Arguably, mule mobilities and entanglements offer ways to think more critically about human-animal relations as well as imperial fantasies and frustrations; such a discussion also elevates this widely ignored commodity and actor. This article was published open access under a CC BY 4.0 licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .