Subalternating Currents: Electrification and Power Politics in Bulawayo, Colonial Zimbabwe, 1894–1939*

Abstract

Compared to other themes, there is very little written about Africa's electrification history. This neglect has led one scholar to claim that, outside South Africa, electricity only emerged in sub-Saharan Africa towards the end of the first half of the twentieth century. Nothing is further from the truth. This article demonstrates that public electricity supplies became available in Bulawayo, colonial Zimbabwe's second largest city, as early as 1897 and subsequently developed to become the major source of power and lighting for industries and homes by the 1930s. The article has two major thrusts; first, it traces how the Bulawayo Town Council nurtured home electrical mechanisation by subsidising both electricity consumption and the purchase of electrical home appliances. Second, it demonstrates that this electrical modernisation was a parochial project that benefited white settler residents of the town almost to the total exclusion of Africans. It concludes that, while electricity was a luxury enjoyed by those who were privileged to use it, the town council also harnessed it to control and police the underprivileged in a way that accentuated racial segregation in the town. * This article originates from my MA thesis: ‘Electrification, Urbanization and Social Inequality in Southern Rhodesia: The Case of Bulawayo, 1894–1945’, Dalhousie University, September 2004. I presented an earlier version of it to the Dalhousie ‘History across the Disciplines’ Graduate Conference, 13 March 2005. I thank the Killam Memorial Scholarship Trusts and the IEEE, Rutgers University, for co-funding the research. Many colleagues, including Phil Zachernuk and Max Zhira, commented on various versions of the paper. Thanks to Glen Ncube for help with the research. I am equally indebted to the three anonymous referees for their crucial comments on an earlier version of this article and to David Simon for his editorial input.