Setting the scene. Unfulfilled futures. 100 years of large-scale irrigation projects in the Sahel

This chapter discusses 100 years of large-scale irrigation schemes in the Sahel: their birth, evolution and complex existence. Initiated during the colonial era and adopted by postcolonial states as a specific mode of development, megaprojects are an intriguing example of the modern capacity to transform space and society, as well as the “attitude of failure” that is experienced over time. The chapter investigates how the megaprojects functioned as traps and were pivotal in triggering the terraforming process related to modernity and coloniality, that is, the interconnected disruption of the previous ecological, territorial, social and political settings of the “new lands”.