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- Convenors:
-
Andreas Greiner
(German Historical Institute Washington)
Robert Heinze (German Historical Institute Paris)
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Short Abstract:
This panel draws attention to the establishment of dynamic infrastructure systems through everyday usage. It is interested in the logics, actors, and practices that shaped infrastructure during transition periods, and in the ways (post-)colonial states engaged with existing infrastructure.
Long Abstract:
Current work in African history throws into question the earlier binary notion of the "formal" versus the "informal" by analysing the interactions between different actors. For various settings, the evolution of everyday infrastructure such as water, electricity, or transport networks has been explored. This panel shifts the conceptual focus to the establishment of infrastructure through everyday usage in increasingly connected societies. It is especially interested in their construction and management during transition periods, i.e. from the pre-colonial to colonial to post-colonial eras, and in the ways (post-)colonial states engaged with existing infrastructure.
Infrastructure networks fashioned the lives of Africans since pre-colonial times. This panel draws attention to the logics and practices that shaped infrastructures. It explores how dynamic, everyday infrastructure systems were established and transformed. How, e.g., were road networks fashioned by people's circulation, and how were they negotiated as well as organised between different actors?
We are especially interested in the disruptions and continuities in these transition periods. To what extend did (post-)colonial rule disrupt or utilise established systems? On the other hand, did people evade spatial reorganisations and continue to shape infrastructure through everyday usage? Is there a continuity between pre-colonial and/or early colonial ways of organising infrastructure and the informal systems that developed in (post-)colonial states?
Papers could include:
- actors and formations that shaped infrastructure
- connections made through infrastructure in Africa
- everyday applications and transformations
- continuities and disruptions under colonial rule
- African responses to and adaption of colonial infrastructure
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 14 June, 2019, -Paper short abstract:
This paper aims to focus on the coastal routes that led to Kilimanjaro during the 19th Century and to ask to what extent the Anglo-German scramble for East Africa, in the 1880-1890s, impacted the pre-colonial road system and resulted into a new regional organisation of these infrastructures.
Paper long abstract:
Throughout the 19th Century, Kilimanjaro had been an important landmark for the caravans that travelled from the East African coast to the hinterland: it was a spot for ivory and slave trades as well as for food supply. When in 1848 German and British explorers started to drive expeditions to this mountain, they benefitted from this developed road network by joining caravans in order to ensure their safety on the route. However, in 1884-1885, an imperialist competition for the colonisation of Kilimanjaro and the coast arose between Great Britain, Germany and the Sultanate of Zanzibar. Attracted by the economic potential of the massif, they were willing to consolidate a colonial road to the coast in order to take advantage of the regional trade. This competition finally led to the integration of Kilimanjaro into the German protectorate in 1890. This paper aims to question the importance of this geopolitical rupture for the organisation of the road system that pre-existed in the region, through administrative and cartographic sources. Indeed, the region between Kilimanjaro and the coast is particularly interesting as a study-case because it was the focus of both German and British imperialist speculations in the 1880s, and was finally divided into two spheres of influence by the 1886 and 1890 Anglo-German agreements. To what extent did the implementation of this boundary in this region transform the organisation of these pre-colonial infrastructures? To what extent did this reorganisation show that Kilimanjaro was a determinant factor in the making of imperial space?
Paper short abstract:
This paper elaborates, how processes of re- and de-territorialization as well as (dis-)enclaving have been shaped by different actors in the Tanzanian mining economy in (post)colonial times of transition.
Paper long abstract:
Mining activities on a larger scale and the required infrastructures in Tanzania have been in the hands of external actors for a long time. While Africans have shaped the mineral economy as contract workers (Lemelle 1986), interlocutors and government employees (Eckert 2006), many engaged in mining operations outside of the formal regulatory framework, but close to or on formally established mining sites. Hence, they also influenced processes of spatialization in multiple ways.
This paper explores, how multiple actors (Africans, foreigners and the (post)colonial state) have shaped processes of re- and de-territorialization as well as (dis-)enclaving in times of transition. I will therefore focus on two main transitory periods - German to British colonial rule and British colonial rule to Tanganyikan independence - as well as cases of mine closures in between. Based on archival and literature work, I will discuss, how mining sites and accompanying infrastructures have been re-spatialized by different actors after being abandoned or seized and how these processes influenced the mining economy.
Paper short abstract:
The paper discusses the limits of colonial infrastructure development in East Africa. With a focus on the agency of caravan porters, it argues that colonial space was a contested field in which infrastructural arrangements were not solely defined by colonial rule but negotiated with African actors.
Paper long abstract:
When the German Empire established its colony German East Africa (1885-1918) in what is today Tanzania, colonial rule suffered from a lack of reliable infrastructure. The sole means of transport were human porters, travelling on long-distance trade routes, which were most often mere footpaths. After 1900, the colonial administration sought to overcome this pre-colonial road system by investing heavily in a new network of paved roads. However, before long many of these new roads had fallen into disrepair.
Taking this failure of imperial infrastructure as a starting point, the paper discusses the spatial practices of the colonial state in East Africa and its limits. The paper focusses on those expected to use the roads: caravan porters. Colonial space was a contested field in which infrastructure schemes planned from colonial office desks collided with established patterns of caravan mobility and local common sense. As the analysis will reveal, the agency of porters prevented colonial authorities from implementing durable infrastructures on the spot. Because porters refused to use the colonial roads, the latter soon were covered by thick thorn bush and rendered useless.
The paper proposes an alternative approach to the question how imperial infrastructure was developed. It suggests to analyse infrastructural development at ground level, arguing that this perspective enables us to explore the logics that shaped the trajectories of infrastructures on the scene. In doing so, it highlights that infrastructure was not solely defined by colonial rule but negotiated with African actors who appear as “veto-players”.