ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the relationship between energy infrastructure and society, with a specific focus on Khartoum in Sudan. It begins by describing 19th-century extraction of energy from the bodily energy of slaves under Turko-Egyptian rule, before the quashing of this source of labour under pressure from the British government. The author then outlines the development of a national grid under the occupation of the Anglo-Egyptian army, linking this to the global geopolitics around oil production, noting the impacts on Sudan. She explores competing involvement from the US and then China to provide oil to the country, along with the general impacts of increased mechanisation and general exacerbations of inequality and conflict through time as it relates to access to energy. She introduces a third phase of energy production, relating to the proliferation of hydropower infrastructure. She discusses the social, political, and environmental impacts of the purportedly clean energy source today as well as the inequalities of access, placing hydropower in contrast to the use of biomass for energy as is done by many in the country. Overall, the author notes how the harnessing of energy has evolved through time in Sudan, relating this to the ways that extraction more generally has been articulated and ideologically mediated across the last two centuries.
