Can I make XmlSerializer ignore the namespace on deserialization?

Yes, you can tell the XmlSerializer to ignore namespaces during de-serialization.

Define an XmlTextReader that ignores namespaces. Like so:

// helper class to ignore namespaces when de-serializing
public class NamespaceIgnorantXmlTextReader : XmlTextReader
{
    public NamespaceIgnorantXmlTextReader(System.IO.TextReader reader): base(reader) { }

    public override string NamespaceURI
    {
        get { return ""; }
    }
}

// helper class to omit XML decl at start of document when serializing
public class XTWFND  : XmlTextWriter {
    public XTWFND (System.IO.TextWriter w) : base(w) { Formatting= System.Xml.Formatting.Indented;}
    public override void WriteStartDocument () { }
}

Here's an example of how you would de-serialize using that TextReader:

public class MyType1 
{
    public string Label
    {
        set {  _Label= value; } 
        get { return _Label; } 
    }

    private int _Epoch;
    public int Epoch
    {
        set {  _Epoch= value; } 
        get { return _Epoch; } 
    }        
}



    String RawXml_WithNamespaces = @"
      <MyType1 xmlns='urn:booboo-dee-doo'>
        <Label>This document has namespaces on its elements</Label>
        <Epoch xmlns='urn:aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa'>0</Epoch>
      </MyType1>";


    System.IO.StringReader sr;
    sr= new System.IO.StringReader(RawXml_WithNamespaces);
    var s1 = new XmlSerializer(typeof(MyType1));
    var o1= (MyType1) s1.Deserialize(new NamespaceIgnorantXmlTextReader(sr));
    System.Console.WriteLine("\n\nDe-serialized, then serialized again:\n");
    XmlSerializerNamespaces ns = new XmlSerializerNamespaces();
    ns.Add("urn", "booboo-dee-doo");
    s1.Serialize(new XTWFND(System.Console.Out), o1, ns);
    Console.WriteLine("\n\n");

The result is like so:

    <MyType1>
      <Label>This document has namespaces on its elements</Label>
      <Epoch>0</Epoch>
    </MyType1>

If you expect no namespace, but the input has namespaces, then you can set

Namespaces = false

on your XmlTextReader.