“We are Sitting on a Time Bomb”: A Multiperspectival Approach to Inter-National Development at an East African Border

Abstract

Recent discussion in critical border studies has reaffirmed the validity and necessity of multiperspectival approaches which move beyond state-centric outlooks to include diverse viewpoints of people at or on borders. One understudied aspect of everyday border life involves how international development organisations fit within wider dynamics of cross-border activities. Drawing upon experiences of development projects at a key border crossing between Kenya and Uganda, I explore (1) how perceptions of risk and danger contribute to constructions of the border towns as places in need of development interventions, and (2) how this border also adds to practical and logistical concerns already held by development organisations as they deliver these interventions. I argue that the place-based mix of location, material forms, and perceptions or practices impacts how 'inter-national development' is rationalised in border regions.

Clean skins: Making the e-Border security assemblage

“…Perceptions manifest agents' attempts to relate and connect objects together under certain conditions. Bordering practices-comprising sets of assumptions, actions and behaviours, either spoken or physical, that authorities engage in as they go about their border work (Allen, 2015)-are another important window onto agents' roles in assemblages.…”

“…As a concept continually in flux, the 'border' holds elements of people, politics, practices, and possibilities in time-and space-specific groups. Thinking in this relational way demands that scholars pay attention to the differences, inconsistencies, and frictions inevitably thrown up by real-world border experiences (Allen, 2015).…”