ABSTRACT

This chapter analyses the geographies of power and authority that new large-scale infrastructure projects in Africa reveal. Against the expectation that much of Africa’s current infrastructure boom is driven by resource extraction, it looks at its broader political reconfigurations and argues that more attention should be paid to the ever more diverse set of external actors involved in infrastructure, increasingly also actors from the Global South. The chapter thus explores some of the ‘state effects’ of new port projects as well as the ports’ complex transboundary topologies, which comprise a multiplicity of actors, standards and technologies. The analysis is built around major port refurbishment and construction projects along the East African coast, in particular the port of Dar es Salaam and the new megaport at Bagamoyo (both in Tanzania), based on fieldwork and desk research. After a discussion of perspectives on infrastructure hubs and the African state, the chapter turns to state politics around the port of Dar es Salaam. This is followed by an exploration of this port as a transnational project and, finally, a discussion of powerful new imaginaries of development and modernity – from a Dubai to a Shenzen ‘model’ – that drive new gateway projects.