Português
This project is developed within a PhD scholarship with the funding reference 101041788.
Railway transport was first introduced during the industrial revolution; since then, it has played a pivotal role in the economic development of nations. Kenya's first encounter with the railroad came in 1986 with the British construction of the MGR1. Despite its seminal role in modern Kenyan history, the MGR fell victim to a myriad of challenges ranging from aging equipment, maladministration, and an acute lack of maintenance after independence (African Development Bank, 2010). Results from studies indicate that most pre-colonial locomotives have over time become motionless (WorldBank, 2005). Moreover, the 1980s' structural adjustment programs greatly impacted the railway's sustainability and growth. While aiming to restore the railway's vibrance, they inadvertently contributed to the emergence of road transport as a preferred transport medium. With such, the road network would hit its highest with the Uganda Malaba2 road being filled with transit trucks running at 80 km per hour and greatly outcompeting the slow rail transport running at 22km per hour. Unfortunately, in the 21st century, railway transport from Nairobi to Mombasa—485km— would reach 24 hours. Significantly, these dynamics of an off-putting railway transport posit the infrastructural tool as less impactful on economics. Hence, by 2000, the MGR was unattractive and ineffective, posing an existential threat and the need for change (Gorecki, 2020).
In attempts to mitigate the challenges, in 2014, five East African governments agreed on the advancement towards the SGR3. Following the agreement in Kenya, the construction of the Nairobi – Mombasa SGR that was laid parallel to the MGR commenced in May 2017. With the new SGR, a great stage was reached in the social life of the MGR (Aselmeyer, 2022). Despite the MGR already struggling situation, the new SGR running at 120km per hour, arrived complete with a new railway network, new locomotives, and modern terminal stations. At completion, the site created two juxtaposing images4, one marked with the magnificent new SGR structures and the other with the old and aging MGR structures. As a result, the MGR structures have been abandoned and left decaying over time.
Studies focusing on the railroads have mainly been from an etic perspective focused on elucidating history and enumerating their success and failure. Hence the locals whose lives have been permeated by the railroads have, over time, been seen as passive actors (Aselmeyer, 2022); (Lesutis, 2022); (Taylor, 2020). A few studies have started taking a bottom-up approach and seeking to understand how locals relate to infrastructural development in their areas (Gez et al., 2022); (Yarrow, 2017).
Following and adding to this latter strand of scholarship, the study will examine locals' oral histories about infrastructures. In addition to oral history, the study will employ walking interviews around the infrastructures. The study aims to find out how the passing of time has been experienced and how it can be socially produced through meanings created via social discourses among locals. Further, the study will seek to understand how the railroad's material remains are experienced, narrated, and memorized. Of importance too for the study will be to find out how they resultantly shape the experiences of the locals around them.
| Research Centre | Research Group | Role in Project | Begin Date | End Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CEI-Iscte | Sustainable Societies | Partner | 2022-10-01 | 2026-09-30 |
No records found.
| Name | Affiliation | Role in Project | Begin Date | End Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Francis Ngure | PhD Scholar (CEI-Iscte); | PhD Scholar | 2022-10-01 | 2026-09-30 |
No records found.
No records found.
No records found.
No records found.
No records found.
No records found.
