The impact of electricity : development, desires and dilemmas

Abstract

List of illustrations Acknowledgements List of abbreviations Chapter 1: Introduction Towards an anthropology of energy Addressing development Research questions The choice of an untypical village Electricity matters What sort of good is electricity? Fieldwork and ethical considerations Learning 'the art of conversation' An outline of the book Chapter 2: Powers of the past The people and the place The colonial period The post-revolution era Chapter 3: The Rural Electrification Project (RUREL) Objectives: improve health facilities, create modern villagers and ensure Zanzibar's future income The impact of international environmental discourses Political difficulties: the project interrupted Public services dramatically improved Household connections, tourism and productivity A summary of the immediate effects of electricity's arrival Chapter 4: Electrifying Uroa Uroa becomes connected The significance of a meal A passion for meetings Women's limited role in the process Creativity and capability - participation practised The limits to local control Finding equivalence Explaining conflict and resistance Development as a political matter Chapter 5: Discourses of development Unreliable markets The generation of money in Uroa Education as an icon of development Religious, modern Zanzibar Television Zanzibar (TVZ) Towards increasing difference Chapter 6: The electricity company in the village Linked to the developed world Entering private space Measuring proper behaviour Payment time: humbleness and resistance The consumption of electricity: a high awareness of the cost Problems caused by the accounting system Disconnection Striving to behave like modern customers Chapter 7: Uroa by night Light as a marker of power The aesthetics of darkness Security light Demographic changes, men, and their houses Speeding up life - consequence and ideal? Uroa transformed Chapter 8: Introducing objects of desire Strategies for obtaining electrical appliances Women's wealth Explaining women's exclusion from the ownership of appliances Putting yourself at risk Normalisation: balancing equality and difference Chapter 9: Reorganising interior space Relaxing in Uroa The home as a stage Reorganising space and social relationships Encapsulating the family Chapter 10: Negotiating tastes in food Cooking with electricity Zanzibari tastes Food as a social marker A cook's technologies and concerns Taste and conflicting discourses Food and body Tastes at rest, tastes in flux Chapter 11: Electricity makes a difference What does electricity promise? Electric networks in their creation Electrification and human well-being Environmentally sustainable development Are kinship relations losing significance? Negotiating gender relationships Electrified worries and the need to get in control 'You don't tell someone with a bike to buy himself a car!' Glossary of Swahili terms Bibliography References Reports Archival sources (Zanzibar National Archives) Index

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