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'Connections
and transformations in Africa' : I.C.E. in Africa: The relationship
between people and the internal combustion engine in
Africa |
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A workshop at the African
Studies Centre, Leiden, the Netherlands, Tuesday 21
November, 2006 |
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return to: Index
page 'Connections and transformations in Africa'
I.C.E.
IN AFRICA: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PEOPLE AND THE INTERNAL
COMBUSTION ENGINE IN AFRICA
GENERAL
In
Africa there is a vast field of study which has never been
systematically researched or analysed. In the past hundred years
this field has become so pervasive as to now pass us by
unnoticed. This is the field of the interaction between people
and the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE). Internal combustion
engines are those in which motive power comes from the explosion
of vapour –usually a petroleum distillate- in a cylinder,
and are to be found in virtually every generator, pump,
motor-vehicle, and boat on Earth.
Through
four case studies, and informed by Actor Network Theory (ANT),
the research project seeks to integrate ICE technology within a
framework of analysis that explores the interrelationship between
people and ICE technology over time in African societies.
THE
AIM OF THE PROJECT is to explore the socio-historical and
cultural relationship that has developed between people and ICE
in Africa, and to examine how ICE has shaped socio-historical
processes.
USING
HISTORICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL METHODS, the (I.)mobile and (II.)
stationary applications of ICE technology in interaction with
people will be examined in:
I.)
a. the social history of the motor-car in Zambia, and b. the
relationship between motorised transport and perceptions of the
Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.
II.)
c. The social history of Tamale, an African town in Ghana
through the lens of ICE-technology, and d. the manner in which
ICE-technology is used in the drive for money in rural Burkina
Faso.
THE
PROJECT WILL RESULT in the publication of books and articles, and
will make a significant and innovative contribution to the fields
of history and cultural anthropology by putting the relationship
between people and ICE-technology in Africa on the academic map
and future research agendas.
Keywords:
Technology, Society, History, Power, Africa
INTRODUCTION
In
Africa there is a vast field of study which has never been
systematically researched or analysed. In the past hundred years
this field has become so pervasive as to now pass us by unnoticed
as a simple fact of everyday life, much as the clothes that we
wear, and the food that we eat. This is the field of the
interaction between people and the Internal Combustion Engine
(ICE). Internal combustion engines are those in which motive
power comes from the explosion of vapour –usually a
petroleum distillate- in a cylinder, and are to be found in
virtually every generator, pump, motor-car, train, boat and bus
on Earth.
In
the present the majority of Africans live in sprawling urban
conglomerates, serviced by water, electricity, and transport, all
dependent on ICE-technology. Likewise, Africa’s export
earnings, be they in mining, agriculture, or industry, are
thoroughly dependent on ICE-technology, and deeply vulnerable to
the vagaries of world markets in technology, commodities and oil.
However, the pervasive interaction between people and ICE extends
beyond mere economics and into all levels of human experience.
Through four case studies, and informed by Actor Network Theory
(ANT), the research project seeks to analyse the
interrelationship between people and ICE-technology over time in
African societies.
2a.
Research topic
2a.1.
Overall aim
THE
AIM of the proposed project is to:
- explore
the socio-historical and cultural relationship that has
developed between people and the Internal Combustion
Engine in Africa
- examine
the manner in which ICE-technology applications have
shaped socio-historical processes and are constitutive
for social activities and interactions in Africa.
Within
the last century the societies of Africa have become totally
dependent on a technology that is wholly foreign in origin, yet
has come to affect all forms of everyday life in Africa. The
manner in which ICE-technology has come to permeate and shape all
forms of social interaction in Africahas not been studied before,
and is the research objective of this project.
2a.2.
Key objectives
The
two prime forms of interaction between people and ICE-technology
(mobile and stationary applications) will be investigated within
the context of four specific case studies (see Ad 2.). This will
provide us with insight into the manner in which people interact
with ICE, as well as, the manner in which social interactions
between people are shaped by ICE.
PUBLICATION
is envisaged as a series of books and articles covering the
relationship between people and ICE applications in Africa at the
level of the state (postdoc), urban centre (PhD), rural setting
(visiting fellow), and continental (visting fellow). An
edited volume will result from an international workshop on the
topic.
2.a.3
Scientific Background
THE
HIDDEN YET EVER PRESENT nature of ICE-technology in everyday life
has led historians and social scientists to overlook the
relationship between people and ICE in Africa. Yet, the
introduction of ICE-technology is arguably the single most
important factor for change in Africain the twentieth century. In
sub-Saharan Africa, with the exception of sectors of the Sahel
and southern Africa, Tsetse fly and horse-sickness made the use
of draught animals impossible and dictated dependence on human
power (Diamond; Ford; Kjekshus). Consequently ICE-technology was
of greater consequence in Africa than elsewhere on earth, if only
because it entailed a radical transformation from human powered
society to externally powered society.
In
dealing with ICE-technology there has been a tendency to see this
as being the domain of the political and economic elite, yet its
impact stretches far beyond the elite and into the everyday lives
of people in the smallest villages at the furthest reaches of
African states.
Though
it is the stereotypical Wabenzi (2004),
the rich Mercedes car owner, who is known beyond Africa, it is
the motor-cycle, bus, mammy- and pickup-truck that truly traverse
African states, and accelerated the already extensive travel of
Africans. Motorised travel led to new ways of seeing and dealing
with the world (Gewald 2002; Schivelbusch; Urry). The continent
may possess but a minute proportion of the world’s
motor-vehicles(Moriarty and Beed), yet it is precisely because of
the scarcity of transport that they assume such importance in so
many fields of human experience.
ICE-technology
radically changed African economies. Increased mobility
stimulated the exploitation of neglected resources. Yet, how this
affected African societies; how people anticipated and dealt with
the economic possibilities; what new entrepreneurial and
technical skills developed, and which came to an end, are
questions that remain to be answered. Commissioned studies have
sought to examine the impact of transport in the formal economy
(World Bank). However very little has been done on the
relationship between motorized-transport and the informal economy
in which the majority of Africans make a living (Berry; Grieco;
Wainaina).
More than on any other continent motor-vehicles gave form,
content, and unity to states created by colonial whim. African
states depend on motor-vehicles for the extension of their
control; from the rapid transfer of government employees through
to tax collection and border patrols. Yet, with the exception of
a single highly exoticising contribution (White), no research
exists on the interaction between people and motor-vehicles, at
the level of politics and social stratification.
ICE-technology
determines Africa in more ways than mobility alone. Its cities,
in which the majority of Africans live, would not be able to
exist without water pumps, electricity generators, and transport,
all of which are powered by ICE-technology. In African states
where the steady supply of water and electricity have long ceased
to be the domain of the state, elites employ their own water
pumps and electricity generators thereby guaranteeing access to
potable water, air conditioning, and a whole host of other things
necessary for comfortable living and status. Seen in this light,
it is clear that ICE-technology is central to the issues of
status and power in Africa. Nonetheless, no material exists which
explicitly investigates this fundamental interaction between
people and technology, let alone the manner in which people
utilise their access to forms of ICE-technology to further their
social position.
NEW
TECHNOLOGIES that developed in northern Europe and North America
in the 1800s were integrally linked up to western dominance in
the world (Adas). More recently authors such as Braun, Postman,
and Stivers, have, as Charlie Chaplin in Modern
Times, sought to emphasize the human
dimension of scientific and technological development.
The
insight, that both technology and society are human constructs,
led to the development from the late 1980s onwards of theory that
sought to integrate human and non-human into the same conceptual
framework. An attempt was made to devise a way of looking at the
world in which the technology/society divide, that had hitherto
existed within academia could be overcome. Within the theory,
which has become known as Actor-Network Theory (ANT), both human
and non-human actors -or actants- were granted ability to
transform society (Bijker; Callon; Latour; Law; Woolgar). For
Callon science and technology are more than actants that bond
society together:
Science
and technology lie at the heart of social asymmetry. Thus
technology both creates systems which close off other options and
generates novel, unpredictable and indeed previously unthinkable,
options (1991: 132).
Central
to Actor-Network Theory is its interdisciplinary approach to
research in the social sciences, humanities, and technology
studies. Aware of the fact that ANT is not a single orthodoxy or
fully consistent body of writing, the research to be conducted in
this project, is influenced by ANT.
Studies
have consistently failed to look at the role of ICE-technology
within African societies, let alone allowed for the influence of ANT.The
conceptualisation, design, and manufacture of the Internal
Combustion Engine occurred within the very specific
socio-cultural setting of northern Europe in the second half of
the nineteenth century; a socio-cultural setting that did not
exist in Africa. The very design of technology may contain within
it important social assumptions and political arrangements
(Bijker; Latour; Law). When ICE-technology was introduced into Africa,
it brought along these specific assumptions and arrangements,
which could be at variance to those that existed in Africa. To
gain understanding as to the development of Africa and its people
in the course of the 20th
Century it is necessary that we investigate the relationship
between people and the technology that has come to influence and
affect all aspects of everyday life.
2a.4.
Originality of the topic
The
overview above indicates that the relationship between people and
ICE-technology is all-pervasive. Nevertheless, practically no
research has been conducted, consequently there is an enormous
lacuna in our understanding of Africa. The proposal indicates a
vast, as yet untouched, territory of investigation, in which the
problematisation of the all-pervasive relationship between people
and ICE-technology is fundamental. The cases within the research
project provide near ideal settings for studying the relationship
at a number of levels and settings (see Ad 2.).
2a.5.
Significance
The
proposed project, by opening a timely, novel and relevant field
of discourse within the disciplines of Social History and
Cultural Anthropology in Africa, will have considerable impact.
The project will lay the solid basis for further work on the
interaction between people and ICE-technology in Africa, and
initiate further theoretical innovation. Crucial contacts for
future collaboration will be established and deepened during this
project.
This
research, to be conducted in the least technologically advanced
continent, Africa, will bring to the fore the wide-ranging impact
and effect that the introduction of technology into human society
can have. This will provide us with insights into the manner in
which people interact with technology. Insights that, given our
own society in which technology suffuses and influences evermore
forms of human interaction, bear significance beyond Africa.
2b.
Approach or methodology
The
identification and analysis, in four specific cases, of the
manner in which people and ICE-technology interact in African
societies, allows us to move beyond a mere description of
technology in society, to a fuller appreciation of the symbiotic
interaction and mutual dependence that exists between people and
ICE-technology.
The
analysis of society and technology with reference to Actor
Network Theory is in its infancy, and nowhere is this more so
than in Africa. Based on historical and anthropological methods,
and informed by ANT, perspectives are developed that allow for
the analysis of the interaction between people and ICE-technology
within societies in Africa, at the local, state, and continental
level. Accepting that technology acts in a symbiotic relationship
which transforms human society, the development of technologies,
as well as the ways in which they are incorporated and adapted,
are to be analysed as socio-historical processes and cultural
practices. It are these processes and practises, the symbiotic
relationship between people and ICE-technology, that the research
project will be investigating.
The
main sources for the research will be archival. Though archives
will appear to be primarily concerned with the economic and
legislative aspects of ICE-technology, a store of information
relating to the social will be found between the lines.
Comparable research is the archival work by Glassman on popular
consciousness on the Swahili coast in the nineteenth century.
The
research will involve interviews in urban and rural settings. In
this it will be comparable to the work of Akyeampong (1996), on
the social history of alcohol in Ghana, which was based on
archives and substantial interviews. In previous work the
researcher has combined oral testimony with archival material,
the project will seek to replicate this successful approach
(Gewald 1999a; 1999b).
Essentially
the research project consists of four inter-related and
complementary ventures(see Ad 2.), which investigate the manner
in which societies interrelate with technology in the past and in
the present. This will allow for the testing of the hypotheses:
·
An essential division exists between mobile and stationary
applications of ICE-technology.
·
Mobile ICE applications changed social, cultural, and economic
relations within and between societies, and transformed ways of
viewing the world, as well as ideology and religious perceptions.
·
Stationary ICE applications transformed and have come to
determine the economic and social structures and relations of
African communities
In
seeking to investigate the impact, influence and effects of the
interaction between people and ICE applications, both mobile and
stationary, upon human society in varying settings in Africa, the
research is divided into two prime inter-related and
complementary research ventures:
I.)
Mobile
a.)
The social history of the motor-car in Zambia
b.)
The relationship between motorised transport and perceptions of
the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca
II.)
Stationary
c.)
The social history of Tamale, an African town in Ghana
through the lens of ICE-technology
d.)
The manner in which ICE-technology is used in the drive for money
in rural Burkina Faso
It
is believed that in this manner the research will provide an
introductory overview of the mutually re-enforcing interaction
that existed between people and ICE-technology in Africa in the
20th Century.
2.c
Innovation
The
project is innovative in that it:
-
examines a field of research that has hitherto been overlooked.
-
situates technology within a socio-historical and cultural
setting.
-
develops cross-disciplinary initiatives in research and theory.
Ad
2. Operationalisation: Individual projects within ICE in Africa
I.
MOBILE:
The
hypothesis, Mobile
ICE applications changed social, cultural, and economic relations
within and between societies, and transformed ways of viewing the
world, as well as ideology and religious perceptions,
is to be tested in two research endeavours.
a.
Social History of the Motor-vehicle in Zambia
[Urry]
suggests that …[we] abandon …[our] ideas of the car as
a thing, a simple object of production and consumption, and look
at it as a system of interlocking social and technical practices
that has reconfigured civil society. (Gartman 2004, 169)
Aim:
To write a social history documenting the far-reaching
transformation of Zambian societies engendered through the
introduction of the motor-vehicle.
Zambia’s
history in the 20th
Century provides the ideal case in which to study the interaction
between human society and ICE-technology. At the beginning of the
century, the deadly Tsetse fly ensured that all goods were
transported by human power, and societies were geared to this
(Gann). This changed with the introduction of motor-vehicles.
Research conducted elsewhere suggests that the introduction of
motor-vehicles radically transformed not only northern European
and American societies (Donatelli; Gartman 1994; Miller; Urry
2000, 2004) but also African societies (Gewald 2002). Zambia lies
at the origin and very heart of African urban sociology, yet the
manner in which the introduction of the motor-vehicle changed
social, cultural, and economic relations within and between
Zambian societies remains to be researched (Schumaker; Werbner).
Zambia’s
20th Century macro
economy has experienced booms and intermittent periods of
stagnation. The development from the 1920s onwards of what were
the world’s richest known copper reserves led to the rapid
urbanisation of the country (Ferguson 1999). It is doubtful that
the urbanisation would have been possible without the presence of
the motor-vehicles (Powdermaker). At independence Zambiawas the
most urbanised country on the African continent, that invested
heavily in the development of a social welfare state, and had a
large car-owning middle-class. Drop in copper demand and the oil
crisis of the early 1970s ended the boom, and Zambia entered into
a recession that has yet to lift.(Duncan et.al.; Ferguson 1999;
Palmer; Rakner). The interaction between people and
ICE-technology in relation to fluctuating economic conditions is
wryly illustrated by a Zambian who noted:
“Car
owning remains a dream. A decade ago, young men in gainful
employment were able to buy cars of all models. That era is gone,
gone never to return again” (Ferguson 1999, 1)
By
researching the archival, oral and published source material,
available in Europe, and southern Africa, the validity of the
hypothesis can be tested, and a social history written which will
provide an answer to the question:
How
and in what manner did the day to day life of people in Zambia
change with the introduction of the motor-vehicle in the 20th
Century?
The
second part of the hypothesis, the manner in which mobile
ICE applications transformed ways of viewing the world, as well
as ideology and religious perceptions, is to
be explicitly examined in:
b.
The relationship between motorised transport and perceptions of
the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca from West Africa
THE
HAJJ, a duty for every Muslim, is intended as a difficult passage
with spiritual and religious significance, in which all believers
are equal. Until the 20th
century, pilgrims from West Africa travelled to Mecca on their
own feet or on the backs of animals. From the 1920s onwards
motor-vehicles came to be used in the Hajj. It stands to reason
that travelling by motor-vehicle transformed the manner in which
Africans experienced and came to think of the Hajj.
Throughout
the world travelling by foot is given spiritual significance
(Amato); vide the ever
popular pilgrimages to St. Compostela in Spain. Seen in this
light, the complaints of colonial administrators extended beyond
the perceived loss of insight into local conditions, engendered
by the coming of the car, into the metaphysical (Allen).
Motorised travel transformed perceptions of the world
(Schivelbusch; Urry; Gewald), yet the manner in which it
transformed perceptions of religious experience has not been
systematically researched.
In
ongoing long-term post-doctoral research on the history of the
west-African Hajj, the visiting fellow, in conjunction with the
research project, will explore the relationship between motorised
transport and perceptions of the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca from West
Africa in the 20th
Century. In this manner an aspect of the interaction between
ICE-technology and religious perception within human society will
be studied.
II.
STATIONARY
The
hypothesis, Stationary ICE applications
transformed and have come to determine the economic and social
structures and relations of African communities,
is to be tested in two research endeavours.
c.
The social history of the town of Tamale, Ghana through the
lens of ICE-technology
“…
in order to understand domination we have to turn away from an
exclusive concern with social relations and weave them into a
fabric that includes non-human actants, actants that offer the
possibility of holding society together as a durable whole”.
(Latour
1991: 103)
Aim:
To write a social history of an African town through the lens of
ICE applications
Thoroughly
dependent for its very existence on ICE-technology, Tamale is the
regional capital in the arid savannah of northern Ghana. Founded
in the early 1900s by British colonial administrators, who
introduced ICE-technology, the town has grown into the urban
centre of northern Ghana. In contrast to other administrative
centres in the region, such as Kano in Nigeria, Tamale did not
exist prior to its colonial founding. With over 300.000
residents, Tamale is currently the fastest growing settlement in West
Africa. At the hub of northern Ghana’s road system, linking Burkina
Faso to the Atlantic seaboard, it is the centre for manufactured
goods and regional marketing for the surrounding savannah, where
residents are involved in farming, cattle production, and cotton
growing.
The
interaction with, and deployment of, various forms of
ICE-technology by colonial, post-colonial, and Dagbon elites,
have all served to shape the town and its inhabitants. In an
environment where control of ICE-technology determines access to
water, food, and electricity, control of ICE-technology is
far more than a mere technological matter. Callon has noted that,
“technology lie[s] at the heart of social asymmetry”
(1991: 132). This is particularly true in Tamale, were access to
ICE-technology, is a matter of power, indeed, of life and death.
As such, one can use the many and varied applications and uses of
ICE, from water pumps to grain mills, as a lens through which to
describe and analyse the social history of Tamale town in the
twentieth century.
Being
an administrative centre, and lying within the kingdom of Dagomba,
there is a rich corpus of material dealing with Tamale and its
ethno-historical context (Oppong; Staniland; Wilks 1975). In
combination with archival and oral information, the research
would seek to describe and analyse the social history of the town
of Tamale in northern Ghana through the lens of ICE applications.
In this manner the way in which through time ICE applications in
interaction with people have come to shape or transform relations
of power between people can be tested and examined.
d.)
The manner in which ICE-technology is used in the drive for money
in rural Burkina Faso
As
part of ongoing long-term post-doctoral anthropological research,
the manner in which ICE applications transformed and came to
determine economic and social structures and relations within
African communities, will be examined in the context of rural
Burkina Faso.
The
focus of this project is on local quests for making money in Burkina
Faso, in the province Sanmatenga, Land of
Gold, where alluvial gold is found. Small
scale alluvial gold mining has a long and distinguished history
in west Africa (H. Gewald; Wilks 1992). However, from the early
1990s, specialist knowledge resulting from the use of drilling
rigs used in geological prospecting, has ensured that local
communities are in turmoil and often lag one step behind as they
struggle to participate in possible windfalls, often with
disastrous results, vide
the failure of communities to plant crops in anticipation of
mining profits (Luning pers. comm.). Different ICE applications
are central to the ways in which social groups are able to grasp
opportunities at these sites, where exploitation depends on
access to transport facilities, pumps, generators, and
increasingly sophisticated mining equipment and privileged
knowledge.
The
research requires anthropological and archival field work. A
special emphasis will be on the history of mining projects in the
region. The focus of fieldwork is on the actors at gold mining
sites in the region of Maane and their access and control of
varying forms of ICE-technology and privileged knowledge. Effects
of uneven access will be central. In this manner insight will be
obtained into the manner in which differentiations in access
leads to uneven accumulation of money and forms of brokerage.
This
fieldwork builds upon extensive anthropological research that has
been done in the region over the last fifteen years (Luning
1997), and will result in a grounded and socially situated
anthropology of the drive for money at sites of alluvial gold
mining in Sanmatenga.
SOURCES,
CONVERGENCE AND DIVERGENCE.
The
four projects are accommodated within the same theoretical
framework and with their emphasis on extracting information
from archival and oral sources they share much in terms of
methodology. The research will allow for the testing of the
hypotheses, with feedback and interaction envisaged throughout
the project specifically within a final workshop. Nevertheless
the Postdoc and PhD projects will, as indicated, eventually lead
to separate monographs, to be complemented by significant
contributions provided by the visiting fellows and an edited
workshop volume.
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