This chapter, “The Border Post”, focuses on material representations of borders in Africa as a mixture of colonial relicts and modernized infrastructures. It highlights the recent transformation process of border stations into One Stop Border Posts (OSBPs) with a focus on Kenya. OSBPs illustrate that African states are actively reorganizing their border regimes. These modernized, digitalized border-control infrastructures stand in the middle of national, regional, pan-African and also foreign, neo-colonial interests. The underlying ethnographic study provides a description of the implementation process and a critical analysis of its local effects. Even though OSBPs were associated with positive expectations, local borderland populations were rather critical about the developments, and experienced economic exclusion and the loss of livelihoods in the context of accelerated traffic. The multi-sited research design makes it possible to compare dynamics in several border locations of Kenya (Malaba, Busia, Namanga, Moyale and Nadapal). In this context, OSBPs are perceived as “travelling models” that depend on local translation processes in individual settings. Local translation can at times lead to challenges and disruptions on the ground, especially in places of conflict and violence, which is described in the cases of Turkana and Marsabit.

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The Border Post

  • Katrin Sowa

摘要

This chapter, “The Border Post”, focuses on material representations of borders in Africa as a mixture of colonial relicts and modernized infrastructures. It highlights the recent transformation process of border stations into One Stop Border Posts (OSBPs) with a focus on Kenya. OSBPs illustrate that African states are actively reorganizing their border regimes. These modernized, digitalized border-control infrastructures stand in the middle of national, regional, pan-African and also foreign, neo-colonial interests. The underlying ethnographic study provides a description of the implementation process and a critical analysis of its local effects. Even though OSBPs were associated with positive expectations, local borderland populations were rather critical about the developments, and experienced economic exclusion and the loss of livelihoods in the context of accelerated traffic. The multi-sited research design makes it possible to compare dynamics in several border locations of Kenya (Malaba, Busia, Namanga, Moyale and Nadapal). In this context, OSBPs are perceived as “travelling models” that depend on local translation processes in individual settings. Local translation can at times lead to challenges and disruptions on the ground, especially in places of conflict and violence, which is described in the cases of Turkana and Marsabit.