Motor Vehicles And People In Africa: An Introduction

Gewald, Jan–Bart; Luning, Sabine; Walraven, Klaas van

doi:10.1163/ej.9789004177352.i-298.7

Cited by 18 publications

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“…As is common in societies where employment is uncertain and low wage, status symbols based on purchasing capability are particularly important (Gewald et al. ; Rotimi ). As one man explained, “Status is about driving a car, having a particular job with a salary, wearing trendy clothing with a certain label, being part of the weekend parties.…”

Section: Cars As Supreme Form Of Propertymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Southern Africa and elsewhere, studies of car ownership have shown how owning and desiring cars has accompanied shifts in both the “material economy of things” and the “moral economy of persons.” Studies of cars in New Mexico, Bucharest, Philadelphia, China, and Central and Eastern Africa have shown how cars influence geographies of architecture, labor, housing, and financial distribution (Bright ; Chelcea and Iancu ; Gewald et al. ; Osburg ; Sheller ; White ). Cars also reveal changes brought about by other factors.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Are Cars the New Cows? Changing Wealth Goods and Moral Economies in South Africa

Jeske

2016

American Anthropologist

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In much of sub-Saharan Africa, cattle have played a central role in maintaining social cohesion by binding people of various means into mutual obligations. Today, among South African Zulu communities, as in much of the world, the social obligations attached to wealth are fiercely contested. To trace conflicts in emerging moral economies, I compare in this article the social roles of cows versus those of another wealth good: cars. Unlike cattle, cars are not given to in-laws, are not shepherded in communal pasturelands, and do not multiply communal wealth through reproduction. Both cattle and cars measure status, but cars measure an individualized status that protectively hedges itself from others' demands. As a minimally fungible investment, a vehicle for independent movement, and a tool for financial independence that is increasingly accessed by both women and men, cars offer a vantage point onto the ways that people navigate between diverging old and new moral economies. [morality, inequality, Africa, cattle, wealth goods]

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Section: Cars As Supreme Form Of Propertymentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

Are Cars the New Cows? Changing Wealth Goods and Moral Economies in South Africa

Jeske

2016

American Anthropologist

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“…One major contribution by Africanist scholars to this emerging series of collaborative works is Speed of Change (Gewald et al . 2009), a volume assembling historical and anthropological case studies on various phenomena related to motor vehicles in colonial and post-colonial Africa 1 . Prior to that, and despite the recognition of Africa as a highly mobile continent (de Bruijn et al .…”

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Introduction: The Perils and Possibilities of African Roads

Klaeger¹

2013

Africa

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Roads and automobility on the African continent are commonly encountered with a rather ambivalent stance, both by Africans and Africanist scholars. This ambivalence emerges from what Adeline Masquelier describes as the ‘profoundly contradictory nature of roads as objects of both fascination and terror’ (2002: 381). In her widely received article on ‘road mythographies’ surrounding Niger's Route 1, Masquelier draws a vivid picture of the ‘contradictory aspects of the road as a space of both fear and desire’ (ibid.: 831). She highlights, in particular, how roadside residents perceive automotive travel as ‘a process fraught with risky and contradictory possibilities’ (ibid.: 832). A ‘pioneering study in the ethnography of roads’ (Campbell 2012: 498), Masquelier's account of people's profound ambivalence towards roads, mobility and transport in post-colonial Niger has been a source of inspiration for a range of scholars who have explored in a similar vein the intricate entanglement of people with (auto)mobility, space and modernity, both in Africa and elsewhere (see, for example, Khan 2006; Klaeger 2009; Dalakoglou 2010; Hart 2011). Five articles in this volume press ahead with the analytic theme of the ambivalence of roads. Through their historic analyses and ethnographic observations, the assembled case studies from Senegal, Ghana, Sudan, Kenya and Tanzania give a strong sense of how the perils and possibilities of roads, roadsides, traffic and transport have been and continue to be embraced in the everyday lives of colonial and post-colonial subjects.

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“…Dorothy Hodgson and Sheryl McCurdy (2001) provide a wonderful context for understanding representations of deviant mobility and their potential for social transformation. For African automobility specifically, see Gewald (2009) and Scheele (2012).…”

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Heroes of the Road: Race, Gender and the Politics of Mobility in Twentieth Century Tanzania

Grace¹

2013

Africa

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This article follows the careers of two African drivers in social environments that circumscribed their movement and access to technology. It begins with Vincent Njovu, whose memoir,The First Driver of Tanganyika, describes the driver's ability to navigate racial hierarchies of movement and technology, including the unlikely circumstances in which he fell in love with an ideal colonial machine. It then explores post-colonial cultures of gender and modernization by using the unpublished memoirs of Hawa Ramadhani, a woman who used automotive skills learned among nuns in the 1940s to become Tanzania's most respected driver. Paired together, the life histories of these drivers challenge historical narratives in which movement and technology (roads and motor vehicles, in particular) are used to discuss Africa's marginalization and decline. Instead, they show how transgressive practices of mobility can be used to challenge social and political orders and inspire new ways to think and act at uncertain historical junctures. Roads in these narratives are defined less by their danger than by their potential to turn unlikely individuals into heroes.

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Motor Vehicles And People In Africa: An Introduction

Cited by 18 publications

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Are Cars the New Cows? Changing Wealth Goods and Moral Economies in South Africa

Are Cars the New Cows? Changing Wealth Goods and Moral Economies in South Africa

Introduction: The Perils and Possibilities of African Roads

Heroes of the Road: Race, Gender and the Politics of Mobility in Twentieth Century Tanzania

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