The future sits in places: Electricity, value, and infrastructural triage in Tanzania

Abstract

This article explores the shifting landscapes of light, labor, and value produced by the politics of electrification in Tanzania. Through engaging the anthropologies of infrastructure and electricity, it asks, how do people understand the relationship between electricity and value in the landscapes that sustain them? A brief outline of the history of electrification in Tanzania highlights its role in the production of place, and analysis of fieldwork with residents, leaders, and energy advocates between 2017 and 2020 reveals contemporary understandings of the relationship between electricity, value, and place. The article then chronicles recent government efforts to dramatically expand access to electricity, outlines the processes of selective grid expansion, and describes how people experience and understand its effects. I construct a theory of infrastructural triage to conceptualize the process of assigning degrees of urgency, priority, and value for developing infrastructure in particular spaces and for particular people and highlight its role in newly configuring the landscapes and timescapes in which people live and experience their everyday lives. In the process of enhancing the productivity and labor of some people but not others, electricity facilitates, obstructs, and marks flows of value across landscapes.