The Making and Unmaking of a Megaproject: Contesting Temporalities along the LAPSSET Corridor in Kenya

• In this paper, we show how communities in Northern Kenya proactively engage an unfolding megaproject and the temporalities it evokes—the Lamu Port South Sudan Ethiopia Transport Corridor (LAPSSET). We argue that the latitude communities have in contending with megaprojects is broader and more dynamic than passive reception of or outright resistance against the futures promised. By introducing the concepts of entangling and fraying, we emphasise the agency communities create for themselves by appreciating their strategies and expressions of stabilising or troubling the “megaproject”. While entangling refers to practices through which communities attach additional features to an otherwise rather stable vision of its “meganess”, fraying, in contrast, describes the strands that splice off towards different spatio‐temporal imaginaries. We discuss these practices in four instances of engaging LAPSSET: constructing temporary homes at project sites; engaging in land reform; disputing land acquisition at oil exploration sites; and contesting a planned resort city.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Tvärvetenskapliga studier inom samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Social Sciences Interdisciplinary (hsv//eng)

Keyword

megaprojects

infrastructure

temporalities

Kenya

fraying

entangling

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)