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Improvising Planned Development on the Gezira Plain, Sudan, 1900-1980

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  • © 2016

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Authors:
  1. Maurits W. Ertsen
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Table of contents (9 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xv
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  2. Introduction Settling Certain Details Coming to a Deal

    • Maurits W. Ertsen
    Pages 1-13

  3. Cotton from a Wilderness: The Early Negotiations

    • Maurits W. Ertsen
    Pages 15-33

  4. A Task of Some Magnitude: Gezira Management Logic

    • Maurits W. Ertsen
    Pages 35-62

  5. No Man Can Serve Two Masters: Designing Gezira Irrigation

    • Maurits W. Ertsen
    Pages 63-86

  6. Making the Best of a Rotten Deal: Tenant Realities and Resistance

    • Maurits W. Ertsen
    Pages 87-107

  7. Another’s Week’s Toil: British SPS Inspectors and Their ldea(1)s

    • Maurits W. Ertsen
    Pages 109-130

  8. Move from the Old Grooves: Gezira Continuity and Change after World War II

    • Maurits W. Ertsen
    Pages 131-149

  9. The Everlasting Rectangles: Gezira and International Development

    • Maurits W. Ertsen
    Pages 151-171

  10. Epilogue A Typical Battlefield: Understanding Negotiated Development

    • Maurits W. Ertsen
    Pages 173-192

  11. Back Matter

    Pages 193-290
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Keywords

About this book

The typical image of the Gezira Scheme, the large-scale irrigation scheme started under British colonial rule in Sudan, is of a centrally planned effort by a central colonial power controlling tenants and cotton production. However, any idea(l)s of planned irrigation and profit in Gezira had to be realized by African farmers and European officials, who both had their own agendas. Projects like Gezira are best understood in terms of continuous negotiations. This book rewrites Gezira’s history in terms of colonial control, farmers’ actions and resistance, and the broader development debate.

Reviews

“Maurits Ersten’s well-written history of the Gezira Scheme relies almost exclusively on the Sudan Archives at Durham University. … It will be a useful guide to others wishing to use the Sudan Archives for further study of the Gezira Scheme, since Ertsen provides good summaries of many reports and memos.” (Michael Kevane, The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 49 (3), 2016)

About the author

Maurits Ertsen is Associate Professor of Water Resources Management at Delft University of Technology, Netherlands. He is interested in irrigation practices emerging from many short-term actions of human agents or farmers’ responses to irrigation planning from a central state. Maurits is one of two Editors-in-Chief of the journal Water History.

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