Ruin of Empire: The Uganda Railway and Memory Work in Kenya. Issue 1 (1st March 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Aselmeyer, Norman
• Is Part Of: Journal of educational media, memory, and society. Volume 14:Issue 1(2022)
• Page Start: 14
• Page End: 32
• Publication Date: 2022-03-01
• Subjects: British Empire -- colonialism -- infrastructure -- Kenya -- nation building -- Uganda Railway; Media programs (Education) -- Periodicals; Education -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Textbook bias -- Periodicals; Textbooks -- Periodicals; 371.3205
• DOI: 10.3167/jemms.2022.140102
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2041-6946

Abstract

Abstract: This article is concerned with the memory of the Uganda Railway in Kenya. Built during the heyday of British imperialism at the end of the nineteenth century, the colonial railway has been a highly contested infrastructure. Drawing on museum exhibitions, public speeches, and publications, the article argues that the main narrative of the railway line as a tool of oppression began to change when the railway infrastructure gradually deteriorated in the mid-twentieth century. I show how three distinct groups (white expatriates, Kenyan-Asians, and Kenya's political elite) were involved in creating a new public memory that popularized the Uganda Railway as a cornerstone of the postcolonial nation. Their uncoordinated but simultaneous efforts toward a new reading of the past all aimed, albeit for different reasons, at reimagining the nation. The article thus shows mechanisms of coming to terms with the colonial past in a postcolonial nation.