Key Readings in the Karoo Kanon:

Archer, S. (2000). ‘Technology and Ecology in the Karoo: A Century of Windmills, Wire and Changing Farming Practice,’ Journal of Southern African Studies, 26(4), pp.675-696. 

Atkinson, D. (2019). ‘When Stars Collide: Competing Development Paradigms in the Central Karoo,’ Journal of Southern African Studies, 45(4), pp.689–709. 

Beinart, W. (2008). The Rise of Conservation in South Africa: Settlers, Livestock, and the Environment 1770–1950. New York: Oxford University Press.

Beinart, W. (2018). ‘An overview of themes in the agrarian and environmental history of the Karoo since c.1800.’ African Journal of Range & Forage Science, 35(3-4):191-202.

Brandt, F. and Spierenburg, M. (2014). ‘Game fences in the Karoo: reconfiguring spatial and social relations,’ Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 32(2), pp. 220-237.

Borchardt, S. (2024). ‘Shedding light on energy poverty: Household energy challenges in De Aar, a renewable energy hub in the Northern Cape,’ in Walker, C. and Hoffman, M. T. (eds.) Contested Karoo: Interdisciplinary perspectives on change and continuity in South Africa’s drylands. Cape Town: UCT Press, pp. 257-286.

Chinigò, D. and Walker, C. (2020). ‘Science, astronomy, and sacrifice zones: development trade-offs, and the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope project in South Africa,’ Social Dynamics, 46(3), pp.391–413.

Chinigò, D. (2019). ‘From the ‘Merino Revolution’ to the ‘Astronomy Revolution’: Land Alienation and Identity in Carnarvon, South Africa,’ Journal of Southern African Studies, 45(4), pp.749–766.

Deacon, J. (1997). ‘‘My Heart Stands in the Hill’: Rock Engravings in the Northern Cape,’ Kronos, [online] (24), pp.18–29.

Dean, W.R.J. & Milton, S.J. (eds.) (2009). The Karoo: Ecological patterns and processes. Cape Town: Cambridge University Press.

Deacon, J. & Skotnes, P. (eds.) (2014). The Courage of IIkabbo. Cape Town: UCT Press.

Henschel, J., Hoffman, T. & Walker, C. (eds.) (2018). “Karoo Special Issue: Trajectories of Change in the Anthropocene,” African Journal of Range & Forage Science , 35(3&4).

Hoffman, T.M., Cousins, B., Meyer, T., Petersen, A. & Hendricks, H. (1999). ‘Historical and contemporary land use and the desertification of the karoo,’ in W. Richard J. Dean and Suzanne J. Milton (eds.) The karoo Ecological patterns and processes. Cape Town: Cambridge University Press, pp. 257-273.

Legassick, M. (2016). Hidden Histories of Gordonia Land dispossession and resistance in the Northern Cape, 1800–1990. Wits University Press.

Legassick, M. (1996). ‘The Will of Abraham and Elizabeth September: The Struggle for Land in Gordonia, 1898-1995,’ The Journal of African History, 37 (3), pp. 371-418. 

Legassick, M. (1996).  ‘The Radical Division of Gordonia,’ Kronos, 25, pp. 152-186.

Malope, T. (2024). ‘A just transition in the Karoo? Renewable energy and the limits of job
creation and community development in Loeriesfontein,’ in Walker, C. and Hoffman, M. T. (eds.) Contested Karoo: Interdisciplinary perspectives on change and continuity in South Africa’s drylands. Cape Town: UCT Press, pp. 233-256.

McDonald, J. (2011). Review of The Politics of a South African Frontier: The Griqua, the Sotho-Tswana, and the Missionaries, 1780–1840 by M. C. Legassick. Historia, 56(1), pp, 158-161.

Milton, S. J. & Dean, W. R. J. (2021). ‘Anthropogenic impacts and implications for ecological restoration in the Karoo, South Africa,’ Anthropocene, 36, p.100307.

Parkington, J., Morris, D. & de Prada-Samper, J. M. (2019). ‘Elusive Identities: Karoo |Xam Descendants and the Square Kilometre Array,’ Journal of Southern African
Studies, 45(4), pp.729–747.

Penn, N. (2005). The Forgotten Frontier: Colonist and Khoisan on the Cape’s Northern Frontier in the 18th Century. Cape Town: Double Storey Books.

Rusch, N. (2016). ‘The root and tip of the ||kwanna: introducing chiasmus in
|xam narratives,’ Critical Arts, 30(6), pp. 877-897.

Van Sittert, L. (2002). ‘Holding the Line: The Rural Enclosure Movement in the Cape Colony, c. 1865-1910,’ Journal of African History, 43, pp. 95-118.

Walker, C., Chinigò, D. & Dubow, S. (eds.) (2019). “Special Issue: Karoo Futures: Astronomy in Place and Space,” Journal of Southern African Studies, 45(4).

Walker, C. & Hoffman, M. T. (2024). ‘Contested Karoo: An introduction’, in Walker, C. and Hoffman, M. T. (eds.) Contested Karoo: Interdisciplinary perspectives on change and continuity in South Africa’s drylands. Cape Town: UCT Press, pp. 1-18.