Vol. 41 No. 2 (2026) Articles
By Charline Kopf
This essay examines the multivalences of repair in Senegalese railway workshops, where workers maintain and modify aging wagons from suburban and former transnational rail services, originally imported from France, and later from India and Pakistan. I trace three interrelated dimensions of repair. First, I show how repair operates as both replacement and improvisation, challenging the assumption that maintenance necessarily counteracts decay; instead, it can accelerate deterioration. Second, I analyze repair as reappropriation, focusing on workers’ “tropicalization” of foreign technologies to fit local conditions. Finally, I explore how the inevitability of failure, stemming from the machines’ inherent faults, demands creative mending and continuous perseverance. These practices generate not only new objects assembled from scrap but also narratives of West African railway workers whose engineering contributions have long been marginalized in colonial and postcolonial histories. Material patching thus becomes an act of reparation, asserting technical authorship and forging alternative histories of infrastructure, labor, and expertise.
Xët wii dafay jàngat anam yu bari yi ñuy defaraate ci atelier yu këru liggéeyukaayu saxaar yi ci Senegal. Foofu la liggéeykat yi di defaraate ba noppi di soppi wagon yu màgget yi bawoo ci sarwiisu banlieue yi ak resó transnasional yu njëkk ya te jóge France, ginnaaw ga Inde ak Pakistan. Maa ngi raññee ñetti mbir yu jëm ci defaraat gi. Li njëkk mooy, damay wone naka la defaraat gi di deme ci wuutu gi itam ci góorgóorlu gi, ak di diiŋat xalaat biy wax ni defaraat dafay xeex yàqu-yàqu; ci geneen wàll gi, mën na gaawloo yàqu gi. Ñaareel ba damay jàngat defaraat gi ni looy moomalaat sa bopp, may bàyyi xel ci «tropicalisation» xaralay bitim réew yi ciy liggéeykat yi di def ngir méngale leen ak anam yi dëkk bi di doxe. Fi may jeexalee mooy, maa ngi jàngat ni masin yi mënul ñàkka yàqoo, te bokk ci ay njuumte yu nekk ci masin yi te loolu dafay laaj xeeti defaraat yu yees ak bañ a xàddi. Jëf yooyu duñu yam ci defar ay mbir yu yees yuñ defaree ak ay jumtukaay yuñ jëfandikoo ba noppi, waaye dañuy nettali itam li liggéeykati raay yi ci Afrique sowwu jant sos, ñoom ñi ñu daanulwoon bàyyi xel ci seen liggéey ci wàllu xarala ci taarix bi fi tubaab yi nekkee ak ginnaaw gi ñu fi jóge. Kon defaraat ay yëf nekk na mbir muy defaraat boo ko xoolee ci wàllu politik, di fësal kiliftéef ci wàllu xarala ak di móol yeneeni jaar-jaari infrastructure, liggéey ak xarañtéef.
infrastructure; maintenance; memory; postcolonial technology; railways; repair; West Africa; infrastructure yi; toppatoo; pataliku; xarala ginnaaw gi fi tubaab yi jóge; raay yi; defaraat; Afrique sowwu jant
Copyright (c) 2026 Charline Kopf
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
