Head-hunters and knowledge-gatherers: Colonialism,engineers and fields of planning

An archival reconstruction of a 1930s engineering expedition to study the hydro-electric potential of the River Nile explores the investigative modalities of engineers. Contributing to an evolving anthropology of infrastructure and electricity the paper offers a material/relational analysis of an engineering field of planning and explores the relationship between ways of seeing and the drive to quantify (commensuration). Contributing to the study of colonialism, the paper finds that the engineering methods brought the African population into view either as a labour force or as politically troublesome but not as potential consumers of electricity.