Danger and Opportunity in Katima Mulilo

Abstract

Rapid construction of new ‘transport corridors’ across the SADC region is supposed to facilitate the free flow of commodities, tourism and investment between ‘valuable places’ in Southern Africa and global markets. Since the opening of a road bridge across the Zambezi in 2004, Katima Mulilo has become a busy stopover point along the Trans Caprivi Corridor (TCC), which links the Copperbelt of Zambia with Namibia's sea port of Walvis Bay. The new transport route has at last fulfilled the colonial dream that motivated the Anglo-German exchange of territory, which originally established the ‘access corridor to the Zambezi’ in 1890. Katima's current investment boom seems to give substance to the SWAPO government's official agenda of ‘bringing development’ to Caprivi, nearly a decade after an armed insurgency attempted its secession. But beyond the apparent success story, Katima Mulilo's boom is illustrative of a broader reconfiguration of the nature of state sovereignty, engendered by...