Southern Deserts 6 will be five days in length, held from 26-30 August 2024 in Walvis Bay, Namibia. This urban location is positioned where the Namib Desert meets the Atlantic Ocean.
 

Conference venue

The conference venue is on Pelican Bay, a site of rich maritime desert histories and now a major industrial harbour. From here it is possible to reach a number of desert locations fascinating for anthropologists, archaeologists, historians and geomorphologists alike.

 

The location of the conference centre – at the Pelican Bay Protea Hotel – is also convenient for a range of accommodation options, which we hope will facilitate attendance by participants with different budget possibilities.

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Themes

The conference itself will be structured around panels with papers and other contributions (including posters and films), organised around the four main conference themes:
 

The deserts and the sea – maritime encounter
 

Tending the desert – sustainable land-use

Marking the desert – rock art and belief

Desert pasts and futures – memory, place and heritage

 

 These themes are outlined in more detail here. 

 

The emphasis will be on comparative cross-regional analyses, and time will be structured into each panel for discussion. To encourage maximum participation of delegates from across the academic spectrum the conference will aim for a complementarity of informal discussion around more formal presentations and papers.

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In keeping with previous Southern Deserts conferences, we will not be aiming for parallel sessions but instead will organise the panels in a single stream, to enable us to maximise the shared comparative nature of research and discussion. Our aim is to invigorate cross-disciplinary research and to learn from each other across the southern hemisphere deserts.

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Excursion

The academic sessions will be concentrated on Days 1, 2, 4 and 5 of the conference, leaving space in Day 3 for an excursion into the Namib Desert. This excursion will take conference participants to Goanikontes in the Swakop River, a place rich with archaeological, historical and cultural sites and meanings. It will be followed by a public lecture at the Swakopmund Museum in the evening providing a chance to share our discussions with local residents.

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Resolution on Mining in Southern Deserts

We will also be scheduling some shared time through the conference for drafting together a proposed “Resolution on Mining in Southern Deserts”. Southern Deserts 6 is a perfect opportunity for writing and refining this short resolution. The Conference will enable us to enhance the resonance of this proposed Resolution across South American, southern African and Australian desert circumstances, where cultural and archaeological heritage sites are vulnerable to the effects of mining and infrastructure development.

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First Nations and Indigenous Peoples

First Nations people will be attending who are currently part of co-managed World Heritage regimes, with and without inscribed cultural values, and others who aspire to co-governance regimes where mining, pastoralism and cultural tourism offer both unique opportunities and challenges. The existence of large tracts of native title lands in Australia creates a unique basket of rights that can result in valuable content when developing interpretative frameworks for conservation estates, and in establishing healthy country plans for Indigenous Protected Areas for which desert societies and cultural values are key.

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Pre- & post-conference excursions

Optional pre- and post-conference excursions to Namib desert locations are also planned (see here), and information will be provided to participants for self-directed pre- and post-conference travel to sites of interest across Namibia’s spectacular desert and cultural landscapes.

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