Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c4f8m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T14:10:52.229Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

INTRODUCTION: THE PERILS AND POSSIBILITIES OF AFRICAN ROADS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2013

Gabriel Klaeger
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Roads and automobility on the African continent are commonly encountered with a rather ambivalent stance, both by Africans and Africanist scholars. This ambivalence emerges from what Adeline Masquelier describes as the ‘profoundly contradictory nature of roads as objects of both fascination and terror’ (2002: 381). In her widely received article on ‘road mythographies’ surrounding Niger's Route 1, Masquelier draws a vivid picture of the ‘contradictory aspects of the road as a space of both fear and desire’ (ibid.: 831). She highlights, in particular, how roadside residents perceive automotive travel as ‘a process fraught with risky and contradictory possibilities’ (ibid.: 832). A ‘pioneering study in the ethnography of roads’ (Campbell 2012: 498), Masquelier's account of people's profound ambivalence towards roads, mobility and transport in post-colonial Niger has been a source of inspiration for a range of scholars who have explored in a similar vein the intricate entanglement of people with (auto)mobility, space and modernity, both in Africa and elsewhere (see, for example, Khan 2006; Klaeger 2009; Dalakoglou 2010; Hart 2011). Five articles in this volume press ahead with the analytic theme of the ambivalence of roads. Through their historic analyses and ethnographic observations, the assembled case studies from Senegal, Ghana, Sudan, Kenya and Tanzania give a strong sense of how the perils and possibilities of roads, roadsides, traffic and transport have been and continue to be embraced in the everyday lives of colonial and post-colonial subjects.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 83 , Issue 3 , August 2013 , pp. 359 - 366
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Agadjanian, V. (2002) ‘Men doing “women's work”: masculinity and gender relations among street vendors in Maputo, Mozambique’, The Journal of Men's Studies 10 (3): 329–42.Google Scholar
Akurang-Parry, K. O. (2001) ‘Colonial forced labor strategies for road-building in the Gold Coast (southern Ghana) and international anti-forced labor pressures, 1900–1940’, African Economic History 28: 23–47.Google Scholar
Alber, E. (2002) ‘Motorization and colonial rule: two scandals in Dahomey, 1916’, Journal of African Cultural Studies 15 (1): 79–92.Google Scholar
Árnason, A., Hafsteinsson, S. B. and Grétarsdóttir, T. (2007) ‘Acceleration nation: an investigation into the violence of speed and the uses of accidents in Iceland’, Culture, Theory and Critique 48 (2): 199–217.Google Scholar
Asiedu, A. B. and Agyei-Mensah, S. (2008) ‘Traders on the run: activities of street vendors in the Accra Metropolitan Area, Ghana’, Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift – Norwegian Journal of Geography 62 (3): 191–202.Google Scholar
Awedoba, A. K. (1981) ‘A note on lorry names in Ghana’, Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford 12 (1): 63–4.Google Scholar
Beck, K. (2004) ‘Bedfords metamorphose’ in Beck, K., Förster, T. and Hahn, H. P. (eds), Blick nach vorn: Festgabe für Gerd Spittler zum 65. Geburtstag. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe.Google Scholar
Brown, A., Lyons, M. and Dankoco, I. (2010) ‘Street traders and the emerging spaces for urban voice and citizenship in African cities’, Urban Studies 47 (3): 666–83.Google Scholar
Campbell, J. (2012) ‘Between the material and the figural road: the incompleteness of colonial geographies in Amazonia’, Mobilities 7 (4): 481–500.Google Scholar
Canzler, W., Kaufmann, V. and Kesselring, S. (eds) (2008) Tracing Mobilities: towards a cosmopolitan perspective. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Carrier, N. (2005) ‘The need for speed: contrasting timeframes in the social life of Kenyan miraa’, Africa 75 (4): 539–58.Google Scholar
Chalfin, B. (2008) ‘Cars, the customs service, and sumptuary rule in neoliberal Ghana’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 50 (2): 424–53.Google Scholar
Colombijn, F. (ed.) (2002) ‘On the road: the social impact of new roads in Southeast Asia’, special issue of Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde 158 (4).Google Scholar
Cresswell, T. and Merriman, P. (eds) (2011) Geographies of Mobilities: practices, spaces, subjects. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing.Google Scholar
Dalakoglou, D. (2010) ‘The road: an ethnography of the Albanian–Greek cross-border motorway’, American Ethnologist 73 (1): 132–49.Google Scholar
Dalakoglou, D. and Harvey, P. (2012) ‘Roads and anthropology: ethnographic perspectives on space, time and (im)mobility’, Mobilities 7 (4): 459–65.Google Scholar
Date-Bah, E. (1980) ‘The inscriptions on the vehicles of Ghanaian commercial drivers: a sociological analysis’, Journal of Modern African Studies 18 (3): 523–31.Google Scholar
de Bruijn, M., van Dijk, R. and Foeken, D. (eds) (2001) Mobile Africa: changing patterns of movement in Africa and beyond. Leiden and Boston MA: Brill.Google Scholar
Fairhead, J. (1993) ‘Paths of authority: roads, the state and the market in eastern Zaire’ in de Alcántara, C. H. (ed.), Real Markets: social and political issues of food policy reform. London: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Featherstone, M., Thrift, N. and Urry, J. (eds) (2005) Automobilities. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Ferme, M. C. (2001) The Underneath of Things: violence, history, and the everyday in Sierra Leone. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Freed, L. J. (2006) ‘Conduits of Culture and Control: roads, states, and users in French Central Africa, 1890–1960’. PhD thesis, University of Wisconsin-Madison.Google Scholar
Gewald, J.-B. (2002) ‘Missionaries, Hereros, and motorcars: mobility and the impact of motor vehicles in Namibia before 1940’, The International Journal of African Historical Studies 35 (2/3): 257–85.Google Scholar
Gewald, J.-B., Luning, S. and van Walraven, K. (eds) (2009) The Speed of Change: motor vehicles and people in Africa, 1890–2000. Leiden and Boston MA: Brill.Google Scholar
Green-Simms, L. (2009) ‘Postcolonial Automobility: West Africa and the road to globalization’. PhD thesis, University of Minnesota.Google Scholar
Hahn, H. P. and Klute, G. (eds) (2007) Cultures of Migration: African perspectives. Münster: LIT.Google Scholar
Hansen, K. T. (2004) ‘Who rules the streets? The politics of vending space in Lusaka’ in Hansen, K. T. and Vaa, M. (eds), Reconsidering Informality: perspectives from urban Africa. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.Google Scholar
Hansen, K. T. (2010) ‘Changing youth dynamics in Lusaka's informal economy in the context of economic liberalization’, African Studies Quarterly 11 (2/3): 13–27.Google Scholar
Hart, J. A. (2011) ‘ “Suffer to Gain”: citizenship, accumulation, and motor transportation in late-colonial and postcolonial Ghana’. PhD thesis, Indiana University.Google Scholar
Harvey, P. (2005) ‘The materiality of state-effects: an ethnography of a road in the Peruvian Andes’ in Krohn-Hansen, C. and Nustad, K. G. (eds), State Formation: anthropological perspectives. London and Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
Heap, S. (1990) ‘The development of motor transport in the Gold Coast, 1900–39’, Journal of Transport History 11 (2): 19–37.Google Scholar
Jordan, J. W. (1978) ‘Role segregation for fun and profit: the daily behavior of the West African lorry driver’, Africa 48 (1): 30–46.Google Scholar
Khan, N. (2006) ‘Flaws in the flow: roads and their modernity in Pakistan’, Social Text 24 (4): 87–113.Google Scholar
King, R. (2006) ‘Fulcrum of the urban economy: governance and street livelihoods in Kumasi, Ghana’ in Brown, A. (ed.), Contested Space: street trading, public space and livelihoods in developing cities. Rugby: ITDG Publishing.Google Scholar
Kirsch, T. (2008) ‘Religious logistics: African Christians, spirituality and transportation’ in de Pina-Cabral, J. and Pine, F. (eds), On the Margins of Religion. Oxford: Berghahn.Google Scholar
Klaeger, G. (2009) ‘Religion on the road: the spiritual experience of road travel in Ghana’ in Gewald, J.-B., Luning, S. and van Walraven, K. (eds), The Speed of Change: motor vehicles and people in Africa, 1890–2000. Leiden and Boston MA: Brill.Google Scholar
Klaeger, G. (2012a) ‘Movements into emotions: kinetic tactics, commotion and conviviality among traffic vendors in Accra’ in Hahn, H. P. and Kastner, K. (eds), Urban Life-Worlds in Motion: African perspectives. Bielefeld: transcript.Google Scholar
Klaeger, G. (2012b) ‘Rush and relax: the rhythms and speeds of touting perishable products on a Ghanaian roadside’, Mobilities 7 (4): 533–54.Google Scholar
Lamont, M. (2012) ‘Accidents have no cure! Road death as industrial catastrophe in eastern Africa’, African Studies 71 (2): 174–94.Google Scholar
Lawuyi, O. B. (1988) ‘The world of the Yoruba taxi driver: an interpretative approach to vehicle slogans’, Africa 58 (1): 1–13.Google Scholar
Lee, R. (2012) ‘Death in slow motion: funerals, ritual practice and road danger in South Africa’, African Studies 71 (2): 195–211.Google Scholar
Lewis, G. H. (1998) ‘The philosophy of the street in Ghana: mammy wagons and their mottos – a research note’, Journal of Popular Culture 32 (1): 165–71.Google Scholar
Lydon, G. (2009) On Trans-Saharan Trails: Islamic law, trade networks, and cross-cultural exchange in nineteenth-century Western Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lyon, F. (2007) ‘Institutional perspectives on understanding street retailer behavior and networks: cases from Ghana’ in Cross, J. C. and Morales, A. (eds), Street Entrepreneurs: people, place and politics in local and global perspective. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Masquelier, A. (2002) ‘Road mythographies: space, mobility, and the historical imagination in postcolonial Niger’, American Ethnologist 29 (4): 829–55.Google Scholar
Meyer, B. and Verrips, J. (2001) ‘Kwaku's car: the struggles and stories of a Ghanaian long-distance taxi-driver’ in Miller, D. (ed.), Car Cultures. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Miller, D. (ed.) (2001) Car Cultures. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Mutongi, K. (2006) ‘Thugs or entrepreneurs: perceptions of matatu operators in Nairobi, 1970 to the present’, Africa 76 (4): 549–68.Google Scholar
Nielsen, M. (2012) ‘Roadside interventions: making time and money work at a road construction site in Mozambique’, Mobilities 7 (4): 467–80.Google Scholar
Ntewusu, S. A. (2011) ‘Settling in and Holding on: a socio-economic history of northern traders and transporters in Accra's Tudu: 1908–2008’. PhD thesis, Leiden University.Google Scholar
Pandya, V. (2002) ‘Contacts, images and imagination: the impact of a road in the Jarwa reserve forest, Andaman Islands’ in Colombijn, F. (ed.), ‘On the road: the social impact of new roads in Southeast Asia’, special issue of Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde 158 (4): 799–820.Google Scholar
Quayson, A. (2010) ‘Signs of the times: discourse ecologies and street life’, City and Society 22 (1): 77–96.Google Scholar
Rizzo, M. (2002) ‘Being taken for a ride: privatisation of the Dar es Salaam transport system 1983–1998’, The Journal of Modern African Studies 40 (1): 133–57.Google Scholar
Sanders, T. (2008) ‘Buses in Bongoland: seductive analytics and the occult’, Anthropological Theory 8 (2): 107–32.Google Scholar
Snead, J. E., Erickson, C. L. and Darling, J. A. (eds) (2009) Landscapes of Movement: trails, paths, and roads in anthropological perspective. Philadelphia PA: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.Google Scholar
Soeters, S. R. (2012) ‘Tamale 1907–1957: between colonial trade and colonial chieftainship’. PhD thesis, Leiden University.Google Scholar
Stasik, M. (2013) ‘In the hustle park: the social organisation of disorder in a West African travel hub’, Working papers of the DFG Priority Programme 1448 (No. 1), Halle and Leipzig.Google Scholar
Stoller, P. (1992) The Taste of Ethnographic Things. Philadelphia PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Urry, J. (2007) Mobilities. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
van der Geest, S. (2009) ‘“Anyway”: lorry inscriptions in Ghana’ in Gewald, J.-B., Luning, S. and van Walraven, K. (eds), The Speed of Change: motor vehicles and people in Africa, 1890–2000. Leiden and Boston MA: Brill.Google Scholar
Vannini, P. (ed.) (2009) The Cultures of Alternative Mobilities: routes less travelled. Farnham: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Vannini, P. (2010) ‘Mobile cultures: from the sociology of transportation to the study of mobilities’, Sociology Compass 4 (2): 111–21.Google Scholar
Vergunst, J. and Árnason, A. (2012) ‘Introduction: Routing landscape: ethnographic studies of movement and journeying’, Landscape Research 37 (2): 147–54.Google Scholar
wa Mungai, M. and Samper, D. A. (2006) ‘ “No mercy, no remorse”: personal experience narratives about public passenger transportation in Nairobi, Kenya’, Africa Today 52 (3): 51–81.Google Scholar
Weiss, B. (1996) The Making and Unmaking of the Haya Lived World: consumption, commoditization and everyday practice. Durham NC and London: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
White, L. (2000) Speaking with Vampires: rumor and history in colonial Africa. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Wilks, I. (1975) Asante in the Nineteenth Century: the structure and evolution of a political order. London: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wrangham, E. (2004) ‘An African road revolution: the Gold Coast in the period of the Great War’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 32 (1): 1–18.Google Scholar