Colonial Schemes and African Realities: Vernacular Infrastructure and the Limits of Road Building in German East Africa

Abstract This article studies infrastructure development in the colony of German East Africa from early 1890s to 1907. By focussing on questions continuity and change transition phase precolonial era colonial rule, demonstrates that road planning coexisted often collided with established systems. After 1891, authorities sought transform existing caravan paths into all-weather highways. The analysis applies an actor-centred approach explain why almost all these efforts failed. A focus those actors being expected construct or maintain (residents) use (transport workers) roads reveals non-compliance subjects, persistence African spatial practices, resulting contestation rule everyday life. In this way, illuminates how Africans responded European interventions which restructured space responses complicated frustrated works. Hence, challenges classical narratives as a ‘tool empire’ instead highlights resilience vernacular structures their producers under rule.