Accessing Electricity in East Africa: Dar es Salaam Dwellers Pursue Power

Abstract

In colonial Dar es Salaam, electricity was meant to signal social status—and to differentiate high-income and low-income neighborhoods. Only wealthy colonizers and merchants had full access to electric power. Whereas the majority of people in European cities were provided electricity in their homes, most people deemed “African” in Dar es Salaam were denied access to the grid. Despite the electricity providers’ purported role as “public utilities,” they did not serve the majority of the population. Chapter 5 argues that electricity provision in the capital of German East Africa and British Tanganyika was a biased process in which power was dispensed according to class and perceived race. Exercising their political power, the city authorities prioritized lighting public spaces such as downtown streets, large thoroughfares, and the streets of upper-class neighborhoods.