Governing economic interests: Interwar road construction in Belgian Congo

Abstract

Contrary to the well-recognised relation between railroad infrastructure and emerging cities in the Belgian colony, the development of the Congolese road network was more closely connected to accessing the colonial hinterland and the expanding the rural economy. This latter link remains underresearched in both Congo’s and Africa’s transportation history, even if the colonial government equally considered road infrastructure a tool of empire. This article deconstructs this super-reducing concept of tools of empire in search of a better understanding of the complex reality of how centrally-defined road policies landed ‘on the ground’ in the vast Congolese hinterland. Studying the interwar development of the road network in the Cataractes-Nord region demonstrates how everyday colonial policymaking relied deeply on the aptitude and agency of private entrepreneurs and government officials alike, in a first step to truly understand the forces at play in the opening up of the Congolese countryside.