Tanganyika's Unhealthy Wilderness: The Visibility of Colonial Space.

Western Tanganyika Territory was one of the most neglected regions by the colonial government. This changed in the late 1920s, when the British administration considered relocation programs to counter and control the epidemic spread of sleeping sickness. The following study focuses on one region wit...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International Journal of African Historical Studies Vol. 56; no. 2; pp. 215 - 242
Main Author: Wiederroth, Nicole
Format: Article
Published: Trustees of Boston University, acting through its African Studies Center 2023
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Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
Description
Summary:Western Tanganyika Territory was one of the most neglected regions by the colonial government. This changed in the late 1920s, when the British administration considered relocation programs to counter and control the epidemic spread of sleeping sickness. The following study focuses on one region within the Western Province, Utongwe, and specifically on a tour of the area in the 1930s. By emphasizing processes of visualization and visibility of historical archive material, the article demonstrates the embeddedness of different agents and the transfer of knowledge in interregional contexts. It foregrounds people and perspectives that were often ignored in Western narratives about African societies of that period. In doing so it uncovers the ambivalence within the processes of the reproduction of a colonial order, and the re-reading of colonial documents.