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Book Book Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The speed of change: motor vehicles and people in Africa, 1890-2000
Editors:Gewald, Jan-BartISNI
Luning, SabineISNI
Walraven, Klaas vanISNI
Chapter(s):Present
Year:2009
Issue:13
Pages:298
Language:English
Series:Afrika-Studiecentrum series (ISSN 1570-9310)
City of publisher:Leiden
Publisher:Brill
ISBN:9789004177352
Geographic term:Africa
Subjects:automobiles
road transport
social history
External link:https://hdl.handle.net/1887/20392
Abstract:In the early 1900s the motor vehicle (car, bus, lorry or motorcycle) was introduced in sub-Saharan Africa. Initially the plaything and symbol of colonial domination, the motor vehicle transformed the economic and social life of the continent. It is arguably the single most important factor for change in Africa in the twentieth century. A factor for change that thus far has been neglected in research. Yet its impact extends across the totality of human existence: from ecological devastation to economic advancement, from cultural transformation to political change, through a myriad of other themes. This collective volume explores aspects of the social history and anthropology of the motor vehicle in Africa. Part I: Historical perspectives, contains chapters on people, mines and cars in Zambian history, 1890-1930 (Jan-Bart Gewald), motor cars and modernity in Portuguese Guinea, 1915-1945 (Philip J. Havik), and the role of transport workers in Sawaba's rebellion in Niger, 1954-1966 (Klaas van Walraven). Part II, Economic perspectives, deals with the evolution of passenger transport in Angola, 1975-2000 (Carlos M. Lopes), and entrepreneurship in the Euro-West African second-hand car trade in Benin (Joost Beuving). The chapters in Part III, Anthropological perspectives, deal with the art of truck modding on the Nile, Sudan (Kurt Beck), 'khat' transporters in Kenya (Neil Carrier), speed and mobility in 'small' wars in the Sahara (Georg Klute), the spiritual experience of road travel in Ghana (Gabriel Klaeger), a chief's fatal car accident in Burkina Faso (Sabine Luning), and lorry inscriptions in Ghana (Sjaak van der Geest). [ASC Leiden abstract]
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