Farmland Investments in Tanzania: a Local Perspective on the Political Economy of Agri-Food Projects
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Farmland Investments in Tanzania: A Local Perspective on the Political Economy of Agri-food Projects Joanny Bélair Thesis submitted to the University of Ottawa in partial Fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. in Political Science School of Political Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences University of Ottawa © Joanny Bélair, Ottawa, Canada, 2019 TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS ..................................................................................................................................................................................... II ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ........................................................................................................................................................... V ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................................................................................. VII INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................................................... 1 OUTLINE OF CHAPTERS .................................................................................................................................................................................. 9 CHAPTER 1: LAND GRABS: WHAT DO WE KNOW? A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE .................................... 21 THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF CRITICAL AGRARIAN STUDIES ....................................................................................................................... 27 FOCUS ON MICRO-POLITICS, INTERACTIONS AND RELATIONS OF POWER ....................................................................................... 32 CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: COMBINING AGENCY, STRUCTURE AND CONTINGENCIES .. 38 CONCEPTUALISING CAS: “S” AND “A” ..................................................................................................................................................... 42 Historical institutionalism .................................................................................................................................................................... 42 Giddens’s theory of structuration ...................................................................................................................................................... 45 Insights from the sociology of the state literature ..................................................................................................................... 47 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGICAL CHOICES AND CONSIDERATIONS ................................................................... 58 CASE SELECTION .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 59 CONDUCTING A POLITICAL ETHNOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................................ 63 THE LIMITS OF THIS RESEARCH PROJECT .................................................................................................................................................. 67 CHAPTER 4: IN BRIEF, THE LEGACIES OF HISTORICAL LAND MANAGEMENT IN TANZANIA AND THE POTENCY OF FACTIONAL STRUGGLES WITHIN THE CCM ...................................................................................... 77 THE LEGACIES OF HISTORICAL LAND MANAGEMENT .............................................................................................................................. 78 BANKRUPTCY AND LIBERALISATION ......................................................................................................................................................... 80 POLITICAL FACTIONALISM, THE 2015 ELECTIONS, AND TANZANIA’S POLITICS UNDER MAGUFULI ............................................... 85 CHAPTER 5: THE NATIONAL POLITICAL ARENA ....................................................................................................... 89 LAND POLICIES AND INVESTMENTS IN TANZANIA: POLITICAL TOOLS TO (RE)ASSERT STATE AUTHORITY ........................................................................................................................................................................... 89 THE APPARENT CONVERGENCE OF INTERNATIONAL AND NATIONAL RHETORIC ON LAND POLICIES .......................................... 91 EXAMPLE 1: TALKING ABOUT “PRODUCTIVE INVESTORS”: A CLEVER POLITICAL STRATEGY ....................................................... 94 LEGAL FRAMEWORK GOVERNING LAND RIGHTS AND OWNERSHIP IN TANZANIA ......................................................................... 100 EXAMPLE 2: WHY A NEW LAND POLICY? .............................................................................................................................................. 101 EXAMPLE 3: MAPPING VILLAGES OR HOW DISTRICT OFFICIALS CONSTITUTE THEIR AUTHORITY TOWARDS VILLAGERS AND INVESTORS .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 105 COMMODIFICATION OF LAND AND CAPITALIST EXPLOITATION ......................................................................................................... 110 Dispossession and Forceful Attribution of Village Land in Rufiji District ..................................................................... 110 Direct Dispossession Through Mapping in Missenyi District .............................................................................................. 113 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 114 CHAPTER 6: RUFIJI DISTRICT, A LOCAL POLITICAL ARENA ................................................................................ 116 LAND INVESTMENTS IN TANZANIA: ASSESSING THE ROLE OF STATE BROKERS ........................................ 116 II FIGURE 1: LANSCAPE OF SELECTED INVESTMENTS RUFIJI DISTRICT 2016-2017 ...................................... 116 REVERSING THE FLOW OF POWER IN A CONTEXT OF LIMITED STATE POWER ............................................................................ 120 A Potemkin state investment agency ............................................................................................................................................ 120 How district officials capitalise on their local Knowledge ................................................................................................... 122 DISTRICT OFFICIALS: GAMING THE SYSTEM ......................................................................................................................................... 126 A new strategy: the protection of unproductive investors ................................................................................................. 126 FIGURE 2 PHOTOGRAPHS INVESTOR C ...................................................................................................................... 130 THE NEGATIVE EFFECT OF CENTRAL MONITORING: FORCING LOCAL OFFICIALS TO INNOVATE TO SAFEGUARD THEIR MATERIAL INTERESTS ............................................................................................................................................................................... 132 Ambiguous at best, illegitimate at worst: how an agency can reinvent itself as a land broker ......................... 132 Central monitoring and subversion ............................................................................................................................................... 135 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 140 CHAPTER 7: MISSENYI DISTRICT, A LOCAL POLITICAL ARENA ......................................................................... 143 PRODUCTIVE “LAND GRABS” IN TANZANIA: HOW IMPORTANT ARE PROTECTED DOMESTIC MARKETS AND CLIENTELISTIC RELATIONS? ................................................................................................................................ 143 KAGERA SUGAR: HOW DO PEASANTS COPE? ........................................................................................................................................ 146 LOCAL CLIENTELISTIC RELATIONS RESTRUCTURE THE LOCAL AGRARIAN SYSTEM ...................................................................... 151 Tanzania’s politics of sugar .............................................................................................................................................................. 151 Who Owns Kagera Sugar? ................................................................................................................................................................. 153 MONOPOLISTIC MANAGEMENT OF CONTRACT FARMING ................................................................................................................... 155 DISTRICT OFFICIALS’ CAPTURE OF LAND FORMALIZATION PROCESSES .......................................................................................... 159 THE EASIEST PREY: MIGRANTS, YOUTHS, WOMEN ............................................................................................................................