Discursive colonialism: German settler communities, their media and infrastructure in Africa, 1898–1914

Abstract

Within the short but brutal period of German colonialism in Africa, settlers set up their own press system. The newspapers became an important medium for them to build supportive networks, make their voices heard and bring their colonial projects forward. In this context, the settler newspapers became keen advocates for a fast expansion of colonial infrastructure, such as railways. This chapter explores the settler press both as a site that depended on technologies, and as a site of construction and circulation of discourses on infrastructure. It argues that infrastructures also communicated a message on their own, one that could be contested by African communities who were otherwise largely excluded from an active contribution to the discourse of the settlers.