Paper short abstract:

Using Gambia as a case study, this paper examines how the authorities seek to regulate traffic--focusing on insurance, vehicle safety, and accidents. It argues that in these practices, we see an argument of the role of bureaucracy in everyday life informed by general suspicion of the Gambian state.

Paper long abstract:

Traffic has emerged as a major issue in sub-Saharan Africa in the scholarly literature as well as in the reports of NGOs and IGOs. While much of these literatures focus on the social impact of traffic (e.g. noise, pollution) and the symbolism of traffic accidents, this paper takes a somewhat different approach and examines the way that traffic and its consequences are bureaucratized in the Gambia. Drawing on long-term ethnographic research in the greater Banjul area, supplemented with an analysis of media coverage, legal documents, and official statistics, the paper seeks to elucidate how traffic has become a subject of bureaucratic concern (as opposed to, say, general public complaining) and how bureaucratic procedures are wielded to regulate traffic. The paper focuses on a couple of distinct areas, namely motor vehicle safety, insurance, legal culpability for accidents, and noise. The paper traces how Gambian and municipal governments and private actors are addressing these issues and how drivers and the general public seek to contribute and/or circumvent these bureaucratic practices. Ultimately, the paper argues, the bureaucratization of traffic simultaneously illustrates the scepticism with which many Gambian view their state as well as 'procedural thirst' that many urban Gambians have, in which an understanding of the presumed proper ways of regulating these things serve as an aspirational index of development and modernity.