{"id":245396,"date":"2022-12-13T03:08:53","date_gmt":"2022-12-13T01:08:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/kenyas-lapsset-development-corridor-between-a-bright-future-and-a-grim-past\/"},"modified":"2022-12-13T03:08:53","modified_gmt":"2022-12-13T01:08:53","slug":"kenyas-lapsset-development-corridor-between-a-bright-future-and-a-grim-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/kenyas-lapsset-development-corridor-between-a-bright-future-and-a-grim-past\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenya’s Lapsset development corridor: between a bright future and a grim past"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Lamu Port-Southern Sudan-Ethiopia Transport \u2013 or Lapsset \u2013 corridor is the flagship project of Kenya\u2019s Vision 2030<\/a> development agenda. Inaugurated<\/a> in 2012, the planned corridor includes a railway, highways and an oil pipeline connecting newly discovered oil fields in the north to a new port in Lamu, north of Mombasa. <\/p>\n

Projects like this are often understood in the context of a new \u201cinfrastructure boom\u201d<\/a>, fundamental for \u201cAfrica\u2019s future\u201d<\/a>. But infrastructure in Africa has a long history. As a contribution to the \u201clong view\u201d on infrastructure in Kenya, I recently compared<\/a> the Lapsset corridor with the Uganda Railway, a colonial project completed in 1901. I focused on different and often competing visions and imagined futures. <\/p>\n

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Read more: Northern Ghana is underdeveloped because of underinvestment during colonial rule, not geography<\/a> <\/strong> <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

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The official promises made about Lapsset are ambitious: \u201cInfinite possibilities. Endless opportunities\u201d pledges the website, as well as a \u201cseamless connected Africa\u201d. But when I listened to people living in the vicinity of the corridor\u2019s planned route \u2013 mostly Samburu, Pokot and Turkana pastoralists \u2013 a more complicated picture emerged. \u201cLapsset will bring the new world,\u201d one interviewee told me. But another said: \u201cIt is actually a monster!\u201d <\/p>\n

My analysis shows how people who will be affected by projects such as the Lapsset corridor have to navigate a highly uncertain future. For many, colonial infrastructure projects of the past provide a frame of reference for their hopes and anxieties. Infrastructure projects are an enticing promise of a better future \u2013 but they can also evoke a violent colonial past. <\/p>\n

Both the Uganda Railway and the Lapsset corridor aimed to mobilise capital \u2013 to get it moving \u2013 while keeping local people \u201cin their place\u201d. But people are also aware that many things have changed since colonial times and the new corridor might actually deliver on its promises.<\/p>\n

One of the people I spoke to was Rashid, a poet living in a small town called Oldonyiro. He summarised the ambivalence in a poem he had written about the corridor, titled \u201cTunu Lenye Utata\u201d in Kiswahili or \u201cTricky Treasure\u201d in English. He recognised the promise of the corridor \u2013 \u201cLapsset is the future!\u201d Yet he also saw a connection between the new corridor and the colonial era \u2013 \u201chistory repeats itself\u201d, he writes. <\/p>\n

History repeats itself<\/h2>\n

What history is Rashid alluding to in his poem? The history of colonial violence in Africa is interwoven with infrastructure projects, along which imperial power could be projected. <\/p>\n

The Kenya Uganda Railway, which linked the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa with the Lake Victoria port of Kisumu, was one of these projects. Colonists saw the railway as a necessary precondition for all of Britain\u2019s colonial projects in the region. The line was completed in 1901, and functions as a blueprint for contemporary infrastructure projects. For example, the Standard Gauge Railway<\/a>, which is not part of the Lapsset corridor, follows its lines quite literally, running approximately on the same route. <\/p>\n

To Rashid, both the Lapsset and colonial infrastructure projects are lines of extraction, primarily meant to exploit the land and its people for the benefit of outside powers. In a conversation about his poem he said:<\/p>\n

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What came to mind after reading the history of my country, I said: \u2018This is the second colony\u2019; I said, \u2018Okay, this is a plan: the resources that the British left in our country are still flowing and this second time it will be very dangerous.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

At the same time, Rashid recognised the promise of the Lapsset corridor. After all, it could bring a better life to a region of Kenya that had long been neglected. He admitted the corridor might have many positive effects: \u201cWhen you enter the hotel, you just charge your phone there!\u201d, he suggested. His poem\u2019s title itself, \u201cTricky Treasure\u201d, shows that he saw infrastructure projects as two things at the same time: a promise of a better future and an impending re-enactment of a violent colonial past. His question \u2013 \u201cwho would I trust?\u201d \u2013 remains unanswered: <\/p>\n

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My faith is loosening, who would I trust? <\/p>\n

My great grandfathers suffered greatly,<\/p>\n

Is it my turn to face and test the worst?<\/p>\n

I wonder, a tricky treasure!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Ruins of empire<\/h2>\n

The ambiguity expressed in Rashid\u2019s poem and many other interviews also speaks to a central concern of postcolonial infrastructure studies: how are former colonies such as Kenya still influenced by their colonial past? <\/p>\n

On the one hand, framing<\/a> Kenya\u2019s development agenda as a mere repeat of imperial practice would be to disregard African agency<\/a>. On the other hand, the many similarities between colonial and postcolonial developmental practices<\/a> cannot be overlooked.<\/p>\n

My aim is not to resolve this ambiguity, but rather to find concepts that help to understand it. The anthropologist Ann Laura Stoler has introduced a term that\u2019s helpful in this context: \u201cRuins of Empire\u201d<\/a>. In my research, I investigate how the ruins of empire are durable but do not determine the present; how they are persistent but never entirely permanent. I understand the ruins of empire both as a metaphor for the enduring effects of colonial violence, as well as a literal description of the material remains left over from the colonial period.<\/p>\n

In a Lapsset promotional video<\/a>, the reconstruction of the ruins of empire is seen as positive: <\/p>\n

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And just as the transport sector \u2013 the old railway over a hundred years ago \u2013 opened up Kenya\u2019s only development corridor that has been the anchor of Kenya\u2019s development, the new oil and gas industry represents our opportunity to open up Northern Kenya for expansion and development. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Read more: Kenya\u2019s Lamu Port was meant to deliver great things. But, as the story of local fishermen shows, it hasn’t<\/a> <\/strong> <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

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The common factor, or so the claim goes, is a commitment to the \u201cdevelopment\u201d of Kenya \u2013 a term that is repeated three times in a single sentence. The oil pipeline of the Lapsset corridor is portrayed as continuing a trend towards the \u201copening up\u201d of hitherto underdeveloped areas. <\/p>\n

The connection between infrastructure and ideas of development, progress and modernity, as well as imperial power, is well established in the literature<\/a>. Infrastructure functioned as a symbol and material embodiment of modernity, and as a way to control people. Armies, police forces and government officials all need roads or railways to travel on, after all. <\/p>\n

The ruins of empire, in Rashid\u2019s perspective, are haunted by the ghosts of past violence and great suffering, but also by the promises of a bright future. The Lapsset project is a Tunu Lenye Utata in this sense – a tricky treasure.<\/p>\n

Source: The Conversation<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Lamu Port-Southern Sudan-Ethiopia Transport \u2013 or Lapsset \u2013 corridor is the flagship project of Kenya\u2019s Vision 2030 development agenda. Inaugurated in 2012, the planned corridor includes a railway, highways and an oil pipeline connecting newly discovered oil fields in the north to a new port in Lamu, north of Mombasa. Projects like this are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":245397,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[3257],"class_list":{"0":"post-245396","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-africa-news-2","8":"tag-mypr","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/kenyas-lapsset-development-corridor-between-a-bright-future-and-a-grim-past.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}