Africa's Freedom Railway: How a Chinese development project changed lives and livelihoods in Tanzania, by Jamie Monson

Framing China's tropics: Thermal techno‐politics of socialist tropical architecture in Africa (1960s−1980s)

“…To further ensure Tanzania's self-reliance, training classes and workshops were set by Chinese experts in Mang'ula for Tanzanian Framing China's tropics workers during 1968À76, through the method of 'learning through practice' (kwa vitendo) to help them acquire knowledge and expertise in construction, operation and regular maintenance (Figure 6) (Monson, 2021). Some talented workers were selected for further training at Beijing Jiaotong University in China (Monson, 2009). These skilled workers would become mentors for the next generation, incrementally accumulating Tanzania's domestic technical talents and expertise.…”

Transfer or Translation? Rethinking Traveling Technologies from the Global South

“…Similarly, the Tazara railway linking Zambia to Tanzania involved Chinese and Africans working "shoulder to shoulder" (Monson 2009). As China's model aid project during the Maoist era, Tazara is a case of "the poor helping the poor" when three Asian and African countries worked together to build a "freedom railway" to avoid dependency on "colonial railway" (Monson 2009). This was, therefore, a periphery-periphery transfer in the spirit of Third World solidarity.…”

“…This was, therefore, a periphery-periphery transfer in the spirit of Third World solidarity. In practice, Tazara used a labor-intensive approach and the Chinese employed a method of "teaching by example" in technical assistance (Monson 2009). By teaching theory and skills through practice, this project created a small but significant cohort of experienced African railway specialists.…”

Shortcut English: Pidgin Language, Racialization, and Symbolic Economies at a Chinese-Operated Mine in Zambia

“…As Jamie Monson (2013) notes in the historical case of nearby Tanzania, Chinese expatriates are often racialized by Zambians as "whites." 2 There is tension and ambiguity in this racialization, however, and oftentimes within the space of a single conversation Zambians at Summers will both affirm and deny Chinese whiteness, depending on which aspects of Chinese identity (phenotypical appearance vs. linguistic and social behavior) they wish to emphasize.…”

“…Through a set of raciolinguistic criteria (Alim et al 2016;Rosa 2019) then, Chinese are situated in a triangulating discourse (Castillo 2020;Lan 2016;Monson 2013) that both associates them with and opposes them against everyday Zambian stereotypes of "real" whiteness. As the comments of Burrell and Henry suggest, these raciolinguistic evaluations "slide" (Hall 2017) to assessments of Chinese character and sociality in ways that are not, on the whole, flattering.…”