From Europeanization to Africanization

Abstract

Through an examination of three case studies, this paper reviews the complexities of the technological encounter in various settings in Africa in the colonial era. Technology played a role in fostering many colonial conflicts, but also enabled many connections, collaborations and opportunities. Together with its destructive role, it was also constructively transformed by local African populations to serve needs that had not been initially anticipated by the colonial administration and agents. In discussing the case studies of guns, railways and bicycles, the paper shows how technology became a site of struggle and negotiation between colonial and local needs, with local populations ultimately investing their own meaning into various technologies. Guns became a valued commodity for trade and livelihood as well as taking on cultural symbolisms; railways presented an opportunity for development, enhanced urbanization and supported new elites; and bicycles were turned into a mark of prestige and social status as well as enablers of entrepreneurship. Thus, while all technologies embody meanings and predetermined usages by those who introduced them to various settings in colonial Africa, once on the ground, these technologies took on range of new meanings and usages that were both functional and conceptual. It will be seen that technologies initially intended to further the colonial agenda ultimately became viable objects for serving local needs and aspirations.