History

349 / AFRICAST 249 / ANTHRO 348B

Bodies, Technologies and Nature(s) in Africa
Winter 2018 | Mondays 1:30-4:20 pm | Building 20 Room 22K

Professor Gabrielle Hecht
Office/hours: TBA
ghecht@stanford.edu

Africa has been repeatedly portrayed as a continent lacking technology. Such depictions reflect
politics and cultures not only of colonial domination, but also of technology. This course explores ways
in which African histories have been shaped by and through technological activities, and ways in which
African perspectives shed light on technological change.

We will probe the nature and meaning of technological knowledge in African settings. We will pay
attention to technopolitical geographies, sometimes focusing on tightly circumscribed geographical
regions, and other times situating localities in larger regional, national, continental, or global networks.
We will discuss the ways in which technologies mediate, represent, or perform power (for example, by
focusing on the instruments of mobility, manipulations of human bodies, or the deployment of
expertise). We shall examine the role of infrastructures and experts in creating and sustaining networks,
and also discuss what happened when those networks or the technologies they involved, or the
natural orders they organized broke down. The course focuses mainly on the colonial and postcolonial
periods, proceeding thematically rather than chronologically. Drawing primarily from the disciplines of
history, anthropology, and geography, the reading & viewing list focuses on recent scholarship, along
with a few classic texts and documentary films.

Course requirements

Talking & listening

This is a discussion seminar. Its success depends on the commitment and involvement of all members.
Therefore, you are expected to arrive thoroughly prepared to participate actively in all discussions.
Participation is not just about talking its also about listening. This is particularly important with a
multi-disciplinary group: we must speak in ways that others can understand, hear unfamiliar concepts
and engage with them seriously, and avoid the temptation to show off esoteric knowledgewith
fashionable jargon.

Attendance is mandatory. Absences should occur only in case of dire need and should be cleared in
advance if at all possible.

Reading & viewing

Reading all the material is essential. Before you plunge in, I strongly recommend reading Paul N.
Edwards, How to Read a Book, available on Canvas or in the Pedagogical Essays of the authors
website: http://pne.people.si.umich.edu/essays.html. Even the most accomplished and experienced
students, postdocs, and junior faculty find this guide useful for getting through large amounts of reading
in limited amounts of time.

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Because we meet on Mondays, and there are two Monday holidays in the Winter, we have two fewer
meetings than most courses. So I am asking you to do some reading for the first day of class. Its not a
full load, and you dont need to post a response, but please make every effort to get through this
material. This will get us off to a good start, and ensure that youre fully prepared for what follows.

As is typical of grad seminars, most of your work involves reading academic texts. As an experiment,
however, the course materials also include a few short documentary films, which you will view in
advance of class. During the weeks when these are assigned, well discuss film as a medium for
scholarship.

Articles, book sections, and film links are available on Canvas. You should endeavor to purchase the
following books. Should that prove too onerous, these are also on reserve in the library but with only
one copy there, youll need to coordinate usage amongst yourselves.

C. C. Mavhunga, ed., What do Science, Technology, and Innovation Mean from Africa?
G. Macola, The Gun in Central Africa
J. Livingston, Improvising Medicine
A. von Schnitzler, Democracys Infrastructure
D. Hoffman, Monrovia Modern

Leading class discussion

Twice during the quarter possibly in partnership with another student you will present an intellectual
genealogy of the weeks reading and lead class discussion. Together with your partner, prepare:

1) an annotated bibliography of 5-10 readings that outline the scholarly debates and
historiographical themes framing the weeks readings. We will talk about how to approach this
part of the assignment on the first day of class.
2) a 1-page handout as an aid to class discussion. This handout should list what you consider to be
the three or four most significant analytical points for the weeks common reading. For each
point, add a brief comment linking it to the background reading done by you and your partner.
The handout should also offer 2-3 questions designed to provoke class discussion. Write the
handout in outline or bulleted form (rather than continuous prose). Do not exceed 1 page.

At the beginning of that class session, the presenter(s) will spend no more than 20 minutes outlining the
background for the readings and elaborating on the discussion questions. All presenters should
participate equally.

Please bring enough paper copies of your bibliography and the handout to distribute to all
class members.

Writing

Weekly posts. Starting with our second meeting on January 22, you must post a response to the
readings for every session in which you are NOT leading the discussion. Posts are due on Canvas by 5 pm
the day before class. Aim for 500 words; do not exceed 600 words. You can assume that weve all read
the texts, so do not summarize the readings. Instead, pick a theme that cuts across several of the

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readings and engage with that theme analytically, drawing on examples from the texts. These posts
should be carefully written and argued.

Final project. The final project will be a paper of around 3000-4000 words, not including notes. The
precise choice of topic and format will vary according to the background and needs of each student.
Possibilities include a review essay, a grant proposal, or whatever other format suits your professional
training or needs. You must receive my prior approval for the format you choose. You can build on a
topic covered in the course (even using one of your intellectual genealogies as a foundation), or you can
explore a topic not directly covered by the course but thematically related (e.g., media, nature reserves,
extraction, scientific research, etc the possibilities are virtually endless). Whatever the choice of topic
or format, your paper must directly engage with course themes.

Proposals (consisting of a 1-page description of your topic, along with an annotated bibliography of 6-8
items) are due on Friday, February 16th by 10 am. Please email these proposals directly to me as a
Word attachment.


Final papers are due Tuesday March 20th by 1 pm.



Honor Code, Fundamental Standard, and Learning Needs:

All students are responsible for fully understanding and following the Honor Code. Students must also
abide by the Fundamental Standard. If you have any questions about plagiarism and the honor code,
you should speak directly with me and/or visit: https://communitystandards.stanford.edu. Students
who require special accommodations should register with the Office of Accessible Education (563
Salvatierra Walk, https://oae.stanford.edu) and inform me during the first week of class (confidentiality
assured).

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 Topics and Readings

January 8 Introduction: Technology and Africa

Confronting African Histories of Technology: A Conversation with Keith Breckenridge and Gabrielle
Hecht, with David Serlin, Radical History Review 127 (January 2017): 87-102.

Guy, Jeff & Motlatsi Thabane, Technology, Ethnicity, and Ideology: Basotho Miners and Shaft-Sinking
on the South African Gold Mines, Journal of Southern African Studies, vol. 14, no. 2 (Jan. 1988).

Emily Osborn, Casting aluminum cooking pots: labour, migration, and artisan production in West
Africas informal sector, 1945-2005, African Identities, Vol. 7, no. 3 (August 2009): 373-386.

Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga, ed., What do Science, Technology, and Innovation Mean from Africa?
(MIT Press, 2017): Introduction and Ch. 1.

Background/optional reading:

Ralph A. Austen and Daniel Headrick. "The Role of Technology in the African past." African Studies
Review 26, no. 3/4 (1983): 163-184.

Kuklick, Henrika. Contested Monuments: The Politics of Archaeology in Southern Africa, pp. 135-169
in George Stocking, ed., Colonial Situations: Essays on the Contextualization of Ethnographic Knowledge
(Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1991).


January 15 MLK day - NO CLASS MEETING


January 22 Knowledge, Industry, Trade

Colleen Kriger, Pride of Men: Ironworking in 19th century West Central Africa (Heinemann 1999),
chapters 3, 4, and 5.

Shadreck Chirikure, The Metalworker, the Potter, and the Pre-European African Laboratory, ch. 3 in
Mavhunga, ed., What do Science, Technology, and Innovation Mean from Africa? (MIT Press, 2017).

Kathryn M de Luna. Hunting Reputations: Talent, Individuals, and Community in Precolonial South
Central Africa. Journal of African History 53 (2012) 3: 27999.

Thornton, John. Precolonial African industry and the Atlantic Trade, 1500-1800, and ensuing debate,
especially Austen and Manning (browse through others), African Economic History 19 (1990): 1-54.

Film: The Tree of Iron. Directed by Peter ONeil and Frank Muhly, Jr, with Peter Schmidt. Foundation for
African Prehistory & Archaeology, 1988. 57 minutes.

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January 29 Flexible Firearms

Giacomo Macola, The Gun in Central Africa: A History of Technology and Politics (Ohio University Press,
2016).

Storey, William K. Guns, Race, and Skill in Nineteenth-Century Southern Africa, Technology and Culture
45 (4): 687-711.

White, Luise. Heading for the Gun: Skills and Sophistication in an African Guerilla War, Comparative
Studies in Society and History, 51/2 (October 2009): 236-259.




February 5 Infrastructure, Labor, Power

Brian Larkin, Signal and Noise: Media, Infrastructure, and Urban Culture in Nigeria (Duke University
Press, 2008), Chapters 1 & 2 (pp 16-72).

Genevive Bdoucha, The Watch and the Waterclock, in Technological Choices: Transformation in
material cultures since the Neolithic, ed. Pierre Lemonnier (London: Routledge, 1993), 77-107.

Libbie Freed, Networks of (colonial) power: roads in French Central Africa after World War I. History
and Technology 26, no. 3 (2010): 203223.

Laura Ann Twagira, Robot Farmers and Cosmopolitan Workers: Technological Masculinity and
Agricultural Development in the French Soudan (Mali), 194568, Gender & History 26(3): 459-477.

Emily Osborn, Containers, Energy, and the Anthropocene in West Africa, pp 69-93 in Gareth Austin,
ed., Economic Development and Environmental History in the Anthropocene: Perspectives on Asia and
Africa (Bloomsbury 2017).

Film: The Land Beneath Our Feet. Directed by Sarita Siegel & Gregg Mitman, with Emmanuel Urey.
Alchemy Films, 2016. 60 minutes.

Background for the film: David Serlin, The Land Beneath Our Feet: An Interview with Gregg
Mitman, Radical History Review 127 (January 2017): 186-196.




February 12 Power, Water, Spectacle

Allen Isaacman,Displaced People, Displaced Energy, and Displaced Memories: the Case of Cahora
Bassa, 1970-2004, International Journal of African Historical Studies 38, 2 (2005):201-238.

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Julia Tischler, Negotiating Modernization: The Kariba Dam Project in the Central African Federation, ca.
1954-1960, in Peter J. Bloom, Takyiwaa Manuh, and Stephan F. Miescher, eds. Modernization as
Spectacle in Africa (Indiana University Press, 2014).

Moses Chikowero, Subalternating Currents: Electrification and Power Politics in Bulawayo, Colonial
Zimbabwe, 1894-1939, Journal of Southern African Studies 2007 vol. 33 (2): 287-306.

Stephan F. Miescher, Building the City of the Future: Visions and Experiences of Modernity in Ghanas
Akosombo Township, Journal of African History, 53 (2012): 367-90.

Erin Dean, The Paradox of Power: Connection, Inequality, and Energy Development on Tumbatu Island,
Zanzibar, Ethnology (summer 2010) 49 (3): 185-206.

Gabrielle Hecht, Radioactive Excess: Modernization as Spectacle and Betrayal in Postcolonial Gabon in
Peter J. Bloom, Takyiwaa Manuh, and Stephan F. Miescher, eds. Modernization as Spectacle in Africa
(Indiana University Press, 2014).

Film: Ghanas Electric Dreams (3 parts of a film in progress). Directed by Lane Clark with Stephan
Miescher. 2017.


February 16 (Friday) - Final paper proposal due by email no later than 10 am.



February 19 Presidents Day NO CLASS MEETING


February 26 Medical Ontologies & Epistemologies

Julie Livingston, Improvising Medicine: An African Oncology Ward in an Emerging Cancer Epidemic (Duke
University Press, 2012).

Stacey Langwick, Articulate(d) Bodies: Traditional Medicine in a Tanzanian Hospital, American
Ethnologist 35(3): 428-439.

Pauline Kusiak. Tubab technologies and African ways of knowing: nationalist techno-politics in
Senegal, History and Technology 26:3: 225-249.



March 5 Technopolitics of Postcolonial Citizenship

Antina von Schnitzler, Democracys Infrastructure: Techno-Politics and Protest After Apartheid (Princeton
University Press, 2016).

Brenda Chalfin, Public things, excremental politics, and the infrastructure of bare life in Ghanas city of
Tema, American Ethnologist Vol. 41, No. 1 (2014): 92-109.

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Colin McFarlane and Jonathan Silver, The Poolitical City: 'Seeing Sanitation' and Making the Urban
Political in Cape Town, Antipode 2016: 1-25.

Keith Breckenridge, The Biometric State: The Promise and Peril of Digital Governance in the New South
Africa, Journal of Southern African Studies 31(2): 267-282.



March 12 Ruins of Modernity

Danny Hoffman, Monrovia Modern: Urban Form and Political Imagination in Liberia (Duke University
Press, 2017).

Pamila Gupta and Gabrielle Hecht, eds., Toxicity, Waste, and Detritus in the Global South: Africa and
Beyond, special series in Somatosphere (2017) [http://somatosphere.net/toxicity]. Read Introduction
and 5 of the short essays, your choice.



FINAL PAPER DUE no later than Tuesday, March 20, 1 pm.