Roads, Lines, and Boundary Objects

A Critical Cartographic Look at the Development of the Serengeti Highway

Dados Bibliográficos

ID14701338
AutoresEric J Lovell (Department of Geography / University of Colorado / Boulder / CO / USA), Eric Lovell (University of Colorado Boulder, autor correspondente)
Ano2017
Volume52
Fascículo4
Páginas310-321
Data de publicação2017-12-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoCartographica The International Journal for Geographic Information and Geovisualization (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0317-7173 • E-ISSN: 1911-9925
EditoraUniversity of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.3138/cart.52.4.2017-0011
OpenAlexW2780175199
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas3
Referências citadas35

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

Archaeology · Environmental planning · Environmental resource management · Geography · Interrogation · National park · Plan (archaeology · Political science · Scrutiny · Tanzania · Tourism · Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Rangeland Management and Livestock Ecology · Ecology