Article ID: CBB951503443

Maintaining the local Empire: The Public Works Department in Dar es Salaam, 1920–60 (June 2020)

unapi

Edward, Frank (Author)
Hård, Mikael (Author)


The Journal of Transport History
Volume: 41
Issue: 1
Pages: 27-46


Publication Date: June 2020
Edition Details: Special issue: The Historical Ironies of Roads
Language: English

Historical studies of infrastructures in colonial settings tend to focus on planning, design and construction. The article modifies this bias by highlighting the repair and maintenance of infrastructures. Investigating the Public Works Department in British Tanganyika, the authors illustrate its importance for keeping streets and roads clear, preventing sewage pipes from flooding and keeping electricity lines working. At the same time, the authors show that the Department struggled with a shortage of funds, and that it was often squeezed between other units of the British administration. Despite the obvious importance of repair and maintenance to keep the colonial economy and power apparatus running, such activities did not enjoy high esteem. The authors explain this state of affairs by referring to the generally low status of operation, maintenance and repair in Western culture and to the somewhat uneasy status of the engineering profession in British culture.

...More
Included in

Article De Greiff A. Alexis; Hård Mikael (June 2020) The historical ironies of roads. The Journal of Transport History (pp. 3-5). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB951503443/

Similar Citations

Article Morgan J. Robinson; (2023)
When a Wonder Is Not a Wonder: Swahili, Translation, and the Communication of Knowledge

Article Sabea, Hanan; (2008)
Mastering the Landscape? Sisal Plantations, Land, and Labor in Tanga Region, 1893--1980s

Thesis Masebo, Oswald; (2010)
Society, State, and Infant Welfare: Negotiating Medical Interventions in Colonial Tanzania, 1920--1950

Article Frank Edward; (2022)
Planned Vulnerabilities? Street Flooding and Drainage Infrastructure in Colonial Dar es Salaam

Book Stephen Legg; (2023)
Round Table Conference Geographies: Constituting Colonial India in Interwar London

Article Tambet Muide; (June 2024)
The road corvée: The persistence of the use of unpaid labour for road maintenance in nineteenth and twentieth century Estonia

Chapter Ying Jia Tan; (2021)
Repairing China’s Power Grid Amidst Perpetual Warfare, 1937–1955

Chapter Hadlaw, Jan; (2021)
Business as Usual: Telephone Repair and Maintenance at the Bell Telephone Company of Canada

Article Bradley Fidler; Andrew L. Russell; (October 2018)
Financial and Administrative Infrastructure for the Early Internet Network Maintenance at the Defense Information Systems Agency

Article Rebecca Mossop; (2024)
Das Luxemburger Telefonsystem. Auf welche Arten wir großtechnische Systeme reparieren und instandhalten (The Luxembourg Telephone System. The Ways in which we Repair and Maintain large-scale Systems)

Book Emily Brownell; (2020)
Gone to ground : A history of environment and infrastructure in Dar es Salaam

Article Giorgio Vittorio Dal Piaz; Alessio Argentieri; (2019)
Sessant’anni del Traforo del Monte Bianco, la storia di un’impresa. Prologo: Da Annibale alle grandi gallerie alpine

Article Waldemar Kuligowski; (March 2019)
How “Poland Entered Europe”: The Motorway as a Space of Neoliberalism

Article Simón Uribe; (June 2020)
The Trampoline of death: Infrastructural violence in Colombia’s Putumayo frontier

Book Michal Ďurčo; (2021)
Cesty a diaľnice na Slovensku v medzivojnovom období: Nástup automobilovej doby v znamení prvej Československej Republiky

Book William W. Buzbee; (2014)
Fighting Westway: Environmental Law, Citizen Activism, and the Regulatory War That Transformed New York City

Article Fredrik Bertilsson; (August 2021)
Politics, industry, and tourism: The conceptual construction of the blue highway

Article Lyubomir Pozharliev; (December 2016)
Collectivity vs. connectivity: Highway peripheralization in former Yugoslavia (1940s–1980s)

Thesis Michael Reuben Fein; (2003)
Public works: New York road building and the American state, 1880–1956

Thesis Amy Louise Nelson Dyble; (2003)
Paying the toll: A political history of the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District, 1923–1971

Authors & Contributors
Brownell, Emily
Keller, Morton
Legg, Stephen
Masebo, Oswald
Russell, Andrew Lawrence
Sabea, Hanan
Journals
The Journal of Transport History
HOST: Journal of History of Science and Technology
International Journal of African Historical Studies
Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Technikgeschichte: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Technik und Industrie
Technology and Culture
Publishers
Transcript Verlag
University of Minnesota
Brandeis University
University of California, Berkeley
Cambridge University Press
Cornell University Press
Concepts
Infrastructure
Roads and highways
Colonialism
Great Britain, colonies
Maintenance and repair
Technology
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
20th century, early
21st century
Places
Tanzania (Tanganyika, Zanzibar)
Africa
United States
Alps (Europe)
India
New York (U.S.)
Institutions
United States. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
United States. Defense Communications Agency
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment