Nonhuman Mobilities and Multispecies Border Regimes in (Post-)Colonial Southern Africa*

This article explores how borders in Southern Africa-such as Namibia's internal veterinary and settler border (Red Line) and national borders between Namibia, South Africa, and Botswana-functioned not only as territorial dividers but as tools to shape colonial and postcolonial multispecies hierarchies. These borders regulated human and animal movement, reinforcing racial and economic inequalities by privileging certain species and people while restricting or dehumanizing others. This study examines political, veterinary, and conservation borders to show how they naturalized racist multispecies hierarchies and legitimized colonial oppression. In doing so, it reveals the dangers of blurring the boundaries between human and nonhuman life, as well as the importance of recognizing nonhumans as co-constituting borders and boundaries. I argue that more-than-human historiography must critically engage with the local histories of border regimes and animal movements to understand their ongoing role in reproducing multispecies power imbalances in (post-)colonial contexts.