Coercion and Dissent: Sleeping Sickness ‘Concentrations’ and the Politics of Colonial Authority in Ulanga, Tanganyika

This article examines the means by which perceived threats of sleeping sickness epidemics were used to justify extensive population resettlement through the formation of ‘concentrations’ in Ulanga District, Tanganyika, between 1939 and 1945. Underlying this specious spatial reordering of communities...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of African history 2022-03, Vol.63 (1), p.37-54
Main Author: Jackson, Jonathan M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
African history
Authority
Autocracy
Coercion
Colonialism
Dissent
Epidemics
Hegemony
Illnesses
Paternalism
Politics
Prestige
Public health
Relocation
Sleeping sickness
Social development
Social history
Syntactic movement
Threats
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Summary:This article examines the means by which perceived threats of sleeping sickness epidemics were used to justify extensive population resettlement through the formation of ‘concentrations’ in Ulanga District, Tanganyika, between 1939 and 1945. Underlying this specious spatial reordering of communities were ulterior motives that interpreted and pushed broader colonial development agendas of social engineering. The prominent role of leading colonial officers, notably A. T. Culwick, is emphasised and reexamined, especially in relationship to paternalism and the coercive aspects of closer settlement. This article explores the nature of legitimised coercion, contested meanings of the League of Nations mandate, and tensions within the administration. Local resistance to concentration challenged colonial hegemony and the self-fashioned form of benign autocracy constructed by officials like Culwick, who relied on a projection of prestige for political authority in his district and among his peers. Concentration was therefore a contested and contingent process with dissent evidenced both against and within government.
ISSN:0021-8537
1469-5138
DOI:10.1017/S0021853722000202