Networks, Institutions and the Failure of the Survey Law of 1874 in the Transvaal

This article concerns the birth and death of the proposed Survey Law of 1874 in the South African Republic (Transvaal), a law that promised to ‘correct’ flawed or fraudulent knowledge with an ongoing triangulation and a general survey of lands that would locate and map all aspects of geography for the state. Such knowledge was essential to the rising class of technocrats that had taken over government bureaus in Pretoria in 1872 and who sought to stabilise and then grow the finances of the republic to support the modernisation of its administration of land as well as its other functions. To this end, a network of technical consultants with knowledge across the subcontinent—and occasionally beyond—worked to draft a law and make the case. Despite the manifest failings of existing systems of land inspection and wide agreement on the desirability of a detailed survey in governmental and scientific circles, however, other forces opposed a formal survey of lands on grounds of cost, principle and possibly self-interest. The result was a failure to pass the draft law or even consider its technical merits. This failure speaks strongly to the need to consider the political and social contexts and conflicts around technical networks and discourses as being relevant to their operation and their outcomes.