Roads, Lines, and Boundary Objects: A Critical Cartographic Look at the Development of the Serengeti Highway

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

In 2010, the then President of Tanzania, Jakaya Kikwete, announced an economic development plan to build a highway that spanned northern Tanzania. The map of the plan revealed a transportation network that traversed the Greater Serengeti–Mara ecosystem and bisected the iconic Serengeti National Park. Given the importance of the Serengeti–Mara ecosystem to conservation and savannah ecology, not to mention international tourism, the plan immediately came under worldwide scrutiny. The Tanzanian state and the Kikwete administration were lambasted, ultimately fixing the highway project in the form of polylines on maps rather than an infrastructure project on the ground. As such, the mutability of lines on maps give the highway project the flexibility to transcend conversations across institutions that span the conservation–development spectrum with limited interrogation. This article addresses the circulation of maps representing the failed highway project through various epistemic communities. My purpose is neither to advocate the development of the Serengeti Highway nor to criticize it. Rather, I use examples of Serengeti Highway maps to discuss the way cartography travels through these conversations, reflect on the international conversation surrounding the Serengeti Highway project, and explore the question of who can (and cannot) draw lines in the contested spaces of East African rangelands.