The road (not) taken : The contingencies of infrastructure and sovereignty in the Horn of Africa

Title data

Terrefe, Biruk ; Verhoeven, Harry:
The road (not) taken : The contingencies of infrastructure and sovereignty in the Horn of Africa.
In: Political Geography. Vol. 110 (2024) . - 103070.
ISSN 0962-6298
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2024.103070

Official URL:

Abstract in another language

This article offers a longitudinal study of the complex entanglements between infrastructure and sovereignty in the Horn of Africa. By analysing Ethiopia's imperial transport corridors, the political economy of Djibouti's Red Sea ports, and the Greater Nile Oil Pipeline between South Sudan, Khartoum, and global markets, we underline the co-production of infrastructure and sovereignty as a defining feature of regional politics in the last 150 years. In a region notorious for the redrawing of borders, continuous violent conflict, and contested sovereignties, we emphasize the contingency of this relationship by making two central arguments. First, infrastructures have been central to the exercise of sovereignty and the consolidation of political orders in the region; dams, pipelines and ports have spearheaded efforts to hardwire centralizing political institutions, extractive commercial relations, and centripetal sentiments of belonging. Second, in doing so these infrastructures have sought to disable infrastructural alternatives because rival infrastructural visions embody competing claims of sovereignty. However, as state-building projects and the infrastructures they prioritize have often failed to successfully neutralise opposing articulations of political authority and belonging, we argue that the vulnerability of existing infrastructures contributes to the vulnerability of political order in the Horn. This article draws attention to the roads not taken and how those could have changed -and might still reconfigure-the politics of the region.

Further data

Item Type:	Article in a journal
Refereed:	Yes
Keywords:	State-building; Infrastructure; Railways; Ports; Political geography; Africa; Oil politics; Historical sociology; Regional integration
Institutions of the University:	Faculties Faculties > Faculty of Cultural Studies Faculties > Faculty of Cultural Studies > Chair Sociology of Africa Faculties > Faculty of Cultural Studies > Chair Sociology of Africa > Chair Sociology of Africa - Univ.-Prof. Dr. Jana Hönke
Result of work at the UBT:	No
DDC Subjects:	300 Social sciences 300 Social sciences > 300 Social sciences, sociology and anthropology 300 Social sciences > 320 Political science
Date Deposited:	04 Oct 2024 07:39
Last Modified:	04 Oct 2024 07:39
URI:	https://eref.uni-bayreuth.de/id/eprint/90531