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Colonial Ambition, Common Sense Thinking, and the Making of Takoradi Harbor, Gold Coast

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2013

Nate Plageman
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Abstract

Throughout the 1920s, British officials in London and Accra dedicated considerable time and bureaucratic energy to the planning and construction of Takoradi harbor, an ambitious project that, they expected, would revolutionize the Gold Coast’s economic prospects. But by 1930, their efforts had created a structure beset with constructional defects, considerable flaws, and financial shortcomings. This article seeks to explain the sizeable gap separating Takoradi-envisioned from Takoradi-realized by examining the massive paper record compiled during the harbor’s planning and construction. Demonstrating that the structure was born largely from illusion, affect, and a particular version of “common sense” thinking, it encourages historians to not only give further attention to the detailed, and often overwhelming, corpus of blueprints, reports, and correspondence that such projects engendered, but to use them to reflect upon the ways in which colonial statecraft actually sought to limit, rather than expand, the knowledge it had at its disposal.

Résumé

Tout au long des années 1920, les officiers britanniques à Londres et à Accra ont consacré une quantité de temps et d’énergie bureaucratique considérable à la planification et à la construction du port de Takoradi, un projet ambitieux qui, selon leurs espoirs, aurait révolutionné les perspectives économiques de la Côte d’Or. Cependant dès 1930, il était possible de constater que leurs efforts avaient abouti à créer une structure accusant de graves problèmes financiers et parcourue de malfaçons et de vices de construction. Cet article cherche à expliquer le fossé béant entre le Takoradi sur le papier et le Takoradi tel qu’il a été construit en analysant la très large documentation accumulée pendant le déroulement du projet. En démontrant que le port de Takoradi était le fruit d’illusions, d’émotions, et d’une version particulière du “bon sens,” cet article encourage les historiens à se pencher sur les souvent volumineux et détaillés corpus de plans, rapports et correspondance générés par de tels projets. Il les invite aussi à réfléchir sur la façon dont l’État colonial a cherché à limiter, plutôt qu’à augmenter, le niveau de connaissances mis à sa disposition.

Type
Documenting Colonial Management
Information
History in Africa , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , October 2013 , pp. 317 - 352
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2013 

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