Paper short abstract:

The paper explores parallels between infrastructure futures of unfinished "ghost projects" and the horror genre, focussing on uncertainty and (in-)visibility as common characteristics.

Paper long abstract:

How are promised but unfinished infrastructure projects encountered by those people whose future is entangled with them? In this presentation I make the case for understanding these ‘ghost projects’ as horror stories, focussing on two characteristics of the horror genre that can help highlight socially differentiated effects of unfinished infrastructure projects. First, Alfred Hitchcock famously observed that the anticipation of something horrific is what truly scares the audience. I argue that these anticipations are contingent on past experience of violence, or ‘memories of the future’: people anticipate being harmed by unfinished infrastructure projects if they or their people have previous been harmed by similar interventions in the past. Second, a core aspect of horror is the instable process of revelation, as opposed to either complete invisibility or visibility as consistent states. Ghost projects understood as works-in-progress are inherently revelatory in this sense, introducing a visual dimension to the study of ‘ghost projects’. The presented article is based on empirical material collected during fieldwork in East Africa since 2018, and includes studies from different large scale infrastructure projects including hydropower projects and development corridors in Tanzania and Kenya. It concludes with some general thoughts on the relation between uncertain futures and visual aspects of infrastructure, as well as critical reflections on the usefulness of literature studies for critical infrastructure studies.

Paper short abstract:

This contribution discusses the value of phenomenology-informed approaches for studying the traces of development interventions. Such approaches can help to honour the site-specificity of such interventions and bridge (temporal) gaps between prospective planning and lived reality.

Paper long abstract:

In development-related research, little attention is paid to phenomenological approaches. One explanation for the omission is that phenomenology represents something of an antithesis to development: while development is a forward-looking, pragmatic field preoccupied with the application of grand schemes along (largely predetermined) objectives, phenomenology “is the scientific study of experience. It is an attempt to describe human consciousness in its lived immediacy, before it is subject to theoretical elaboration or conceptual systematizing” (Jackson 1996a, 2). Applied to development, phenomenology invites us to ‘bracket’ top-down scripts and immerse in everyday lived experience. While development only engages with material culture for its utility, phenomenological research assumes the ‘constitutive coingredience’ of humans and their environment (Casey 2001, 684). Rather than talking about development, such scholarship would recognize the multifaceted impact of the ongoing, in-situ concreteness of development’s lingering legacies both tangible and intangible.

Drawing on the work of phenomenology-inspired thinkers (notably Tim Ingold), this contribution will discuss phenomenology-informed research into the traces of development: ruinations, reappropirations, contested legacies, etc. Such approaches, I will argue, are especially useful for concretizing the temporal disjunctures between prospective planning and lived reality, and for bridging such gaps. I will emphasize the value of such approaches not only for researchers (e.g., through walking interviews) but also for activists wishing to draw attention to the ongoing, often unintended consequences of development interventions (e.g., through soundwalks).

This contribution is presented in the context of ongoing ERC Starting Grant project AfDevLives, and will offer illustrations from fieldwork in Eastern Africa.

Paper short abstract:

The cancellation of land grabs since the early 2000s has left millions of hectares of land in Africa lying in limbo, uncultivated or used under precarious conditions. The paper aims to explore how cancelled land deals affect smallholders’ land access and livelihoods in Tanzania.

Paper long abstract:

While research on large-scale agricultural investment in Africa has exploded over the past two decades, the focus of development bodies has gradually shifted elsewhere. This might be due to the meagre delivery from this global development agenda for rural Africa, compared to expected achievements, where most of these investments have been stalled, scaled back or even cancelled. However, studying the effects of such cancelled land deals is urgent since they still negatively affect smallholder farmers’ access to land and livelihoods but also seem to offer opportunities to redistribute land to smallholders. Indeed, the cancellation of land grabs since the early 2000s has left millions of hectares of land lying in limbo, uncultivated or used under precarious conditions. This paper aims to explore how cancelled land deals affect smallholders’ land access and livelihoods in Tanzania.

Paper short abstract:

Despite the promises of lasting, transformative change, the extractive industry in Kenya is characterized by evanescence and uncertainty. Using the notion of ‘development limbo’, this paper explores the state of in-betweenness contrived by the truncated delivery of CSR projects and local content.

Paper long abstract:

Turkana in northern Kenya has long been on the receiving end of an unsteady flow of international development interventions. Development projects vary greatly, not only in their orientation—from health to infrastructure, from agriculture to civic education—but also by the implementing agent. Latest, private developers such as oil companies became government partners to introduce ‘change’ via infrastructure development and CSR projects. However, far from the promises made, projects are replete with delays, circularity, and abrupt standstills. In my case study, I will elaborate concrete promises lingering indefinitely, creating an interim state that eventually becomes intransient: a development limbo.

As this notion implies, rather than focusing on the clash of visions between different stakeholders (Ridde and de Sardan 2022) or the repurposing of projects over time (Gez 2021; Schler and Gez 2018), this paper will explore the gaps between the promises of transformative change and de facto truncated, uncertain delivery (Wedekind 2021). Through the notion of development limbo, I will examine how, among local stakeholders, the promises of oil-driven development contrive a state of in-betweenness, from legacies of past interventions that may or may not be revived to imaginations and aspirations regarding those yet to come. Often overlooked by scholarship, I will assert the palpable effect of such in-betweenness on individuals and communities at the oil exploration site in Turkana East from an anthropological perspective.

Paper short abstract:

This article takes a historical approach to question the politics behind the planning of the Nyerere hydropower dam in Tanzania for the past six decades and how delays in the construction of the dam keep the communities surrounding earmarked project areas in suspense.

Paper long abstract:

The Rufiji River Basin is one of Tanzania's potential hydroelectric power production areas. Since the colonial period, there was a strong desire to develop the basin for irrigation agriculture, transportation, and hydroelectric power generation. The construction of the hydropower plant did not occur and the postcolonial government up the matter seriously but delayed implementation. Visions for the dam were premised on the country's lack of adequate energy supply and desire to build an industrial base. The Nyerere hydropower dam in the Rufiji Basin was at the center of these desires but decades went by with only plans on paper until 2018 when a political drive set the project in motion. This article takes a historical approach to question the politics behind the planning of the Nyerere hydropower dam in Tanzania for the past six decades. It examines the extent to which imaginations of future inform actors’ responses and how delays keep the people surrounding earmarked project areas in suspense. Contested as it looks, the dam represents local and global pressures on conservation, energy freedom and future making of Tanzania as one of the giant suppliers of electricity in the region.

Paper short abstract:

The Cape Town-based World Commission on Dams sought to overcome conflict over large dams by uniting supporters and opponents in one multi-stakeholder dialogue. This presentation traces the history and legacies of an institution that seemed to promise a different, more progressive kind of development

Paper long abstract:

The World Commission on Dams was established on the initiative of the World Bank and IUCN in the late 1990s, following extensive conflict over large dams in many countries around the world. Its base was in Cape Town, and its head, Kader Asmal, was a South African government minister and long-standing anti-apartheid activist.

The World Commission on Dams has often been called an ‘experiment in multi-stakeholder dialogue’, because it united dam opponents and supporters, from government, private sector, civil society, and academia, who were tasked with coming to a consensus about the future of large dams.

Against the odds, the Commission presented its final report in 2000, spawning hopes for a more progressive future, in which social and environmental considerations would be given much greater priority in large dam construction.

While its final report continues to be a point of reference for many, uptake of the Commission’s recommendations has been varied. Its influence on the current wave of large dam construction in African countries can be debated.

This presentation traces the unusual history of the World Commission on Dams as a global environmental policy forum that once held promises for the future of development.

Paper short abstract:

In 1925, a group of German investors set out to modernise Ethiopia's infrastructure and economy. Although they had hoped for high returns, their ambitious venture failed with the invasion of the Italian fascists in 1935.

Paper long abstract:

The loss of Germany's colonies limited and disadvantaged German businessmen with global ambitions. After World War I, their British and French competitors had far easier access to agricultural and mining resources in their respective colonial territories of the global South. The Ethiopian Empire was one of the few major territories not occupied by colonial powers. Following the Battle of Adwa in 1896, however, there had been diplomatic relations and, with the French-built railroad between Djibouti and Addis Ababa, a transportation infrastructure.

In 1925, a group of German investors met in Geislingen/Steige to form a business consortium aimed at mining gold in the Beni Shangul region of western Ethiopia. Unlike in colonies, land and resources could not simply be expropriated and exploited. Formal agreements had to be made with the imperial court under Crown Prince Ras Mekonnen, who had a vested interest in foreign investment and technology that would enable Ethiopia to develop into a modern nation. As a result, a series of ambitious treaties were signed that provided licenses for gold mining, oil production, cotton and oilseed plantations, the textile industry, the electrification of Addis Ababa including the construction of a tramway, an arms factory, a monopoly on alcohol production, and the establishment of air transportation to and from Ethiopia. Internal disputes, the opacity of Ethiopian power structures, and finally the Italian invasion in 1935 put an end to these far-reaching ambitions.

In 2015, a streetcar system actually went into operation in Addis Ababa - built by a Chinese company.