Water and Africa 
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| Title: | 'Men on the Spot', and Labor Policy in British East Africa: The Mombasa Water Supply, 1911-1917 |
| Author: | Willis, Justin |
| Year: | 1995 |
| Periodical: | International Journal of African Historical Studies |
| Volume: | 28 |
| Issue: | 1 |
| Pages: | 25-48 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic terms: | Kenya Great Britain |
| Subjects: | colonialism labour recruitment water supply Labor and Employment History and Exploration |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/221304 |
| Abstract: | Through examination of one particular episode - the 'recruitment' of workers for a public works scheme, the Mombasa water supply works of 1911-1917 in Kenya - this paper suggests a reappraisal of the making of local policy in British East Africa, offering an understanding of how decisions were made through the efforts of both European officials and African accumulators to 'cope with the contradictions' of the early colonial State. The study suggests that although there was a metropolitan hand in the making of local policy, this hand often exercised its power quite unknowingly, unaware of the local detail of policy that metropolitan demands entailed. Actual policy was made by 'men on the spot', not liberally inclined officials, but an uneasy, often friction-laden alliance of European officials and African accumulators, each anxious to maintain the authority that this accommodation offered them. As the study shows, their accommodation could, according to circumstance, lead either to brutal excess or to considerable amelioration of the impact of colonial laws. Notes, ref. |
