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Researcher(s):
Schuyler Schwartz
ENVS course(s): 400 Initiated: September 2014 Completed: May 2015 Go to project site
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How have colonial practices and infrastructure contributed to current discourses around desertification? How did the development of French colonial infrastructure change the perceptions of water distribution during times of water scarcity in postcolonial Senegal? This paper argues that French colonial officers have played a central role in the implementation and distribution of drinking water infrastructure in Senegal during colonial and postcolonial times. French colonists established water infrastructure to improve their living conditions and economic efficiency. Access to infrastructure segregated the French from the Senegalese in Dakar from the mid 1800s to 1960. The French education system provided for the Senegalese eventually created a class of African elites. After Independence in 1960, the dynamics between colonizers and the colonized populations persisted between elite and poor Senegalese. This dichotomy of access between classes as a result of colonial precedents is most evident during times of water shortage within Senegal. Senegalese lower class efforts to understand drought reflect their distrust of governmental bodies that began during colonialism. Scientifically, drought is explained by the combination of anthropogenic and natural forces. Desertification, the permanence of drought, has been perceived by groups of Senegalese as a misallocation of resources by the French. The emphasis of one cause for desertification over the other depends on the perspective and invested interest of stakeholders. French neocolonial desires, expressed by Sarkozy in 2007, are masked by the pretense of providing developmental aid. Distrust of the French presence within Senegal is linked to unequal access of resources, as expressed in the Senegalese book Cycle de Sécheresse (Cycles of Drought). Times of water shortage display the access inequality that fuels the distrust between colonized populations and former colonizers.