5 - The End of Caravans (1930–1950s)

Summary

As Chapter 4 has already made clear, this chapter is not another caravan-to-car story. Nor is it another case study of threatening mobility vs. governmentality. It is rather a continuation of Chapter 4 on the transformations of economic and political geography that put caravans to the test. Building on Chapter 4 and contrary to developmentalist notions of modernisation, this chapter argues that the end of caravans was a cumulative process, just like its persistence until the interwar period. New kinds of territorialisation (automobility and what I define as the ‘evening of mobility’ were part of it, indeed) fostered gradual disintegration and divergence across the caravan regional market. This would gradually erode the caravans’ raison d’être and deepen their transition to shorter routes while camels and traders would find new employments.