{{Short description|German political scientist}} {{Use dmy dates|date=September 2025}} {{Infobox academic | honorific_prefix = <!-- see MOS:CREDENTIAL and MOS:HONORIFIC --> | name = Henning Melber | honorific_suffix = | image = Henning-Melber.jpg | image_size = | alt = | caption = Melber in 2022 | native_name = | native_name_lang = | birth_name = <!-- use only if different from full/othernames --> | birth_date = {{birth date and age|1950|08|22|df=y}} | birth_place = Stuttgart, Germany | death_date = | death_cause = | citizenship = | other_names = | occupation = | period = | known_for = | home_town = | title = Prof. Dr. | boards = <!--board or similar positions extraneous to main occupation--> | spouse = | partner = | children = | parents = | relatives = | awards = | website = | education = | alma_mater = {{Plainlist| * Free University of Berlin * University of Bremen }} | thesis_title = | thesis_url = <!--requires alma_mater--> | thesis_year = | school_tradition = | doctoral_advisor = | academic_advisors = | influences = | era = | discipline = {{Plainlist| * Political science * History of science * Sociology }} | sub_discipline = | workplaces = {{Plainlist| * Nordic Africa Institute * Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation * Uppsala University }} | doctoral_students = | notable_students = | main_interests = | notable_works = | notable_ideas = | influenced = | signature = | signature_alt = | signature_size = | footnotes = }}
'''Henning Melber''' (born 22 August 1950) is a German political scientist and sociologist. He is a German-Namibian and Swedish Africanist and political activist.<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://www.sun.ac.za/english/faculty/arts/political-science/Pages/Staff/TRU%20Staff/Henning-Melber.aspx |title = Prof Henning Melber}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.daghammarskjold.se/author/henning/ |title=Henning Melber - Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation |access-date=27 July 2017 |archive-date=28 July 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170728163317/http://www.daghammarskjold.se/author/henning/ |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>[https://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/kolonialismus-namibia-kolonialverbrechen-versoehnungspolitik-1.5371979?reduced=true Alex Rühle: Kolonialverbrechen in Namibia:"Das bleibt eine offene Wunde"], Interview mit Henning Melber, Süddeutsche Zeitung, München 4 August 2021; accessed 23 März 2023</ref><ref>[https://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/voelkermord-in-namibia-deutschland-hat-verschlafen-a-1212490.html Anna-Sophie Schneider: Völkermord in Namibia "Deutschland hat verschlafen"]. Interview mit Henning Melber. Der Spiegel, Hamburg, 18 März 2018; accessed: 23. März 2023</ref>
== Biography == Born in Stuttgart, Melber grew up in Esslingen am Neckar and Leutkirch in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. He moved to Namibia in 1967 as a teenager and the son of German immigrants, and graduated from the German Higher Private School Windhoek in 1970.<ref>Henning Melber: Licht und Schatten einer jungen Demokratie. Namibia 1990-2000. Eine analytische Chronologie. Namibia Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft, Windhoek, Namibia, 2002, {{ISBN|99916-40-27-4}}</ref> In 1974, he joined the SWAPO liberation movement. From 1975 to 1989 he was banned from entering Namibia and until 1993 also to South Africa. After Namibia's independence (21 March 1990) he returned to Namibia. In 2000 he moved to Sweden.<ref>[https://www.goethe.de/prj/zei/de/exp/22318023.html Henning Melber, Politologe], Zeitgeister, Internationale Perspektiven aus Kultur und Gesellschaft, Goethe-Institut, # Postcolonialism, Erinnerungskultur, Decolonization, accessed: 22 March 2023</ref>
In the 1970s, Melber studied Political Science and Sociology at the Free University of Berlin. He received a PhD in 1980 at the University of Bremen with a thesis on ''School and Colonialism''. From 1982 to 1992 he was a research assistant in the social sciences department at the University of Kassel. In 1993 he habilitated at the University of Bremen and was appointed lecturer in development sociology (venia legendi for development sociology).<ref name="auto">{{cite web |title=Henning Melber - The Nordic Africa Institute |url=https://nai.uu.se/about-us/person/henning-melber.html |website=nai.uu.se |access-date=1 June 2022 |language=en}}</ref>
From 1992 to 2000 he was Head of the Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit (NEPRU) in Windhoek. From 1994 to 2000 he was chairman of the {{ill|Namibisch-Deutsche Stiftung|de}} in Windhoek. From 1996 to 1998 he was also chairman of the Association of Namibian Publishers (ANP). In 2000, he joined the Nordiska Afrikainstitutet in Uppsala, Sweden. After that, he headed the Swedish Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation from 2006 to 2012, where he is currently still a member in an advisory capacity.<ref>[https://www.exzellenzcluster.uni-konstanz.de/melber.html Vita von Henning Melber], Kulturwissenschaftliches Kolleg Universität Konstanz.</ref><ref>[https://www.globalpolicy.org/de/staff/henning-melber Henning Melber, Politikberater (Uppsala)], Global Policy Forum (GPF), New York, accessed: 22 March 2023</ref><ref>{{Cite web | url=http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/ramogi-need-to-protect-african-middle-class/440808-4005720-rco04w/index.html |title = RAMOGI: There is need to safeguard African middle class| date=4 July 2020 }}</ref><ref>[http://apps.ufs.ac.za/media/dl/userfiles/documents/News/2013/2013_05/Short%20Bio%20Prof%20Henning%20Melber.pdf Short Bio Prof Henning Melber] ufs.ac.za</ref>
Since 2012 Melber has been an extraordinary professor at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. Since 2013 he has also been an associate professor at the Center for Gender and Africa Studies at the Free State University (Bloemfontein) in South Africa. From 2017 to 2023 he was President of the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes ( EADI) in Bonn.<ref>{{cite web |last1=European Association of Development Research and training Institutes (EADI) |url=https://www.eadi.org/news-archive/2017.08/new-eadi-president-henning-melber/ |website=EADI |accessdate=3 September 2018|title=New EADI President Henning Melber }}</ref><ref>[https://geschichtedergegenwart.ch/autorin/henningmelber/ Henning Melber (CV), Geschichte der Gegenwart]. ''online-Magazin'', Basel, 2023</ref> Since 2015 he has been a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies of the University of London.<ref>[https://nai.uu.se/about-us/person/henning-melber.html Henning Melber, NAI Associate]. The Nordic Africa Institute (NAI), people; accessed: 22 March 2023</ref>
Melber was also a visiting scholar at the Cluster of Excellence: Cultural Foundations of Social Integration at the University of Konstanz (April/May 2018), Van Zyl Slabbert Visiting professor at the University of Cape Town (October/November 2017) and visiting scholar at Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies (University of Bayreuth), (April/May 2016).<ref>[https://www.uni-giessen.de/de/ueber-uns/veranstaltungen/vortraege/entwicklungen-namibia Prof. Dr. Henning Melber: Politische und soziale Entwicklungen in Namibia] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230324201611/https://www.uni-giessen.de/de/ueber-uns/veranstaltungen/vortraege/entwicklungen-namibia |date=24 March 2023 }}, University of Giessen, 2016, accessed: 22 March 2023</ref>
Henning Melber is married and has one daughter.
== Awards == * ''Conversation Africa Science Communication Award'', University of Pretoria in 2020 and 2021 in the category ''Science Communication Excellence''. * ''internationally acclaimed researcher'' und ''B2-scholar'' National Research Foundation (South Africa) (NRF), 2018.<ref name="auto"/>
==Publications== Melber has published numerous books and several hundred contributions on Namibia's problems and history, as well as on other topics such as internationalism and racism:
*''School and Colonialism: The Formal Education of Namibia'', Hamburg 1979. *''The whiteness of the last conclusion: racism and colonial gaze''. Brandes & Apsel, Frankfurt 1992, {{ISBN|3-86099-102-7}} . *''Opportunities of international civil society''. (with {{ill|Reinhart Kößler|de}}) Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1993, {{ISBN|3-518-11797-1}}. *''[http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn%3Anbn%3Ase%3Anai%3Adiva-11 A New Scramble for Africa? Imperialism, Investment and Development]''. (Eds., with Roger Southall) Scottsville, University of KwaZulu-Natal Press 2009, {{ISBN|978-1-86914-171-4}}. *"The United Nations and Regional Challenges in Africa - 50 Years after Dag Hammarskjöld". (Eds., with Maxi Schoeman) In ''Development Dialogue'', no.57, December 2011, {{ISBN|978-91-85214-63-1}} . *''Understanding Namibia''. Jacana Media, Cape Town 2014, {{ISBN|978-1-4314-2133-6}}. (Also Oxford University Press, London 2015, {{ISBN|978-0190241568}} ). *''Namibia - Socio-political explorations since independence''. Brandes & Apsel, Frankfurt a. M. 2015, {{ISBN|978-3-95558-109-1}} . *''Genocide - and then what? The policy of German-Namibian past processing''. (with Reinhart Kößler) Brandes & Apsel, Frankfurt, 2017, {{ISBN|978-3-95558-193-0}} .
== External links == * {{DNB-Portal|109114035}} * [http://www.boell.de/weltweit/afrika/afrika-afrika-rohstoffe-ressourcen-globalisierung-9059.html article by Henning Melber at the Heinrich Böll Foundation] * [http://www.nai.uu.se/research/finalized_projects/liberation_democracy/publications.pdf publications by Henning Melber 2000-2006] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305141651/http://www.nai.uu.se/research/finalized_projects/liberation_democracy/publications.pdf |date=5 March 2016 }} * [https://nai.uu.se/about-us/person/henning-melber.html Henning Melber at the Nordiska Afrikainstitutet] * [http://pw-portal.de/bibliografie/rezensionen-finden?pagination=true&sessionbehalten=true&titel=&s=&strAutorNachname=Melber&rubrik-1=&rubrik-2=&rubrik-3=&verlag=0&verfasser=0&intJahrStart=&intJahrEnde=&intBuchID= Publikationen von Henning Melber]{{Dead link|date=October 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot }} in the {{ill|Annotierte Bibliografie der Politikwissenschaft|de}} * [https://independent.academia.edu/HenningMelber Henning Melber], academia.edu * [https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Henning-Melber Henning Melber], ResearchGate
==References== {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Melber, Henning}} Category:1950 births Category:German political scientists Category:German sociologists Category:Scientists from Bremen (city) Category:Namibian people of German descent Category:White Namibian people Category:Living people Category:Namibian independence activists Category:People from Esslingen am Neckar Category:African studies Category:Area studies scholars