AEGIS ECAS 2007 - View abstract

Panel	62. Copper and Migrants: Towards a social history of industrialisation and social change in central Africa 1890-1990
Paper ID	134
Author(s)	Walraven, Klaas van
Paper	No paper submitted
Abstract	This paper discusses research intentions regarding the development of the mining town of Arlit, in the Sahara, north of Agadez, and its significance for the changing political economy and social history of Niger. During World War II the French found clues for the existence of uranium deposits in the Nigérien desert, which was confirmed in 1956. As of 1971 uranium mining started, to which purpose an entirely new city was constructed to house mineworkers: built from scratch in one of the most inhospitable regions of the world, Arlit attracted not just mineworkers but all manner of fortuneseekers, like traders, artisans, prostitutes and others seeking to benefit from the appearance of this new town, enjoy its amenities, its cafés, the opportunities for work and earning a livelihood. As a new town, its diverse ethnic-cultural composition provided it with a cosmopolitan flavour highlighting Arlit’s originality and the optimism of a pioneering population that would refer to it as the ‘second Paris’. Yet Arlit also constituted a mirror image of broader politico-economic transformations: as money of uranium production began to flow, Niger’s macro-economic basis shifted from peasant-produced export of cash crops (groundnuts) in the south towards the far more lucrative (from the state’s perspective) mining of a strategic mineral − uranium, in the course of which migration patterns were significantly affected. Also, toughly negotiated higher returns of uranium production provided Niger’s military regime a degree of autonomy vis-à-vis the former metropole unparallelled in the country’s post-colonial history. However, hopes for a better future were proved wrong in the end, firstly, because of the development of a military dictatorship that built on the repressive traditions of Niger’s First Republic and benefited from uranium-derived state incomes, and, secondly, because of a progressive decrease in uranium prices later on. This was reflected both in the vicissitudes of Arlit and the fates of its citizens, as well as the longer-term socioeconomic (mis)fortunes of Niger. This paper sets the agenda of new research engaging various questions such as how Arlit was constructed, spatially and in socioeconomic respects?; which people settled in Arlit?; how was this town’s new proletariat organised?; what were the hopes, ideals and disappointments of its population?; what were the social differences marking the town’s social make-up?; how did the emergence of uranium production and the development of Arlit, as a new town, impact on Niger’s changing social relations?; how did the shift of Niger’s economic focus from south to north influence the country’s political economy?; how were patterns of migration affected?; what were the effects of newly acquired wealth on socioeconomic relations under the umbrella of continued political repression?; how should one grade, in the longer term, the temporarily revised relations with the former metropole in the wake of the higher returns negotiated − setting the enhanced degree of autonomy vis-à-vis the metropole against the disappointing returns of the later 1980s and 1990s?; does this have a bearing and can it provide deeper historical insight in the significance of present-day ‘neo-liberal’ economic strategies?

A Sahelian Perspective on Industrialisation and Social Change: Arlit, Niger and the New History − An Agenda for Research