Introduction Dam Tour
Nile Basin
As we can witness on the Nile today, the old dams and bureaucracies have not been simply removed. Tracing carefully what happens to old infrastructure as the modernization of the river progresses, the tour examines how subsequent modern development projects have changed the river, and how water security has shifted along the way.
The tour analyses how the three waves of hydraulic construction rearranged relations between investors, states and associations of water users along the Nile.
Bringing into conversation the modern calculations of water security that were mobilized to arrange control over land, water and people with accounts of specific changes in the forms and meanings of the Nile, this tour through time explores how each wave produced its own Nile calculations and ecohistorical limits. By tracing how each wave of development thus posed material conditions for subsequent hydraulic projects, this Dam tour provides a historical and material basis for getting a grip on the possibilities for rearranging the Nile today.
