Land Policies:Questioning discrepancies between discourse and practices in Tanzania

Sous titre:

Land investments in Tanzania: a local perspective on the political economy of agri-food projects.

Nom de carnet:

Mambo ! Le carnet de l'IFRA Nairobi

Date de publication:

Jeudi 07 Septembre 2017 - 15:15

Publié ici :

07 Septembre 2017

Mis à jour le :

08 Septembre 2017

Mots-clefs:

land policies
Tanzania
discrepancies
liberal policies
agricultural development
mapping practices

Langue de publication:

Anglais

Zone géographique:

Afrique

Land Policies:Questioning discrepancies between discourse and practices in Tanzania

Par Joanny Bélair, third-year Ph.D. student at the School of political studies, University of Ottawa.
Her dissertation is titled: Land investments in Tanzania: a local perspective on the political economy of agri-food projects.
Data presented in this paper was collected during a seven-months field research, conducted mostly in rural areas of Tanzania, in two regions: Pwani and Kagera.

This working paper analyzes practices of consultation associated to two specific recent land policies in Tanzania. It aims at understanding why there are important discrepancies between official policies and practices associated to their implementation. It argues that the role played by international institutions and actors in shaping African politics— neo-liberal development policies and discourses—should not be overstated. Instead, I contend that the international influence explains only partly the practices associated to the implementation of Tanzania land’s policies: its hegemonic impact being mostly superficial.

Understanding practices associated to land policies requires considering the lasting impact of Tanzania’s culturally and historically embedded normative structure of governance and relations of power. Despite her adoption of more liberal policies since the early 1990s, Tanzania displays some enduring ideational features associated to her socialist past such as the conceptualization of the role played by the state in development and the prevalence of top-down governance practices.

Thus, practices associated to the participative dimension of development are resulting from actors’ navigation between an international neoliberal normative structure, and Tanzania’s own normative structure that is shaped by institutional and ideational legacies. First, I show how the official state rhetoric is convergent with neoliberal ideas associated to agricultural development. Then, I explore the discrepancies between official policies and discourse, arguing that practices resulting from these policies are the result of actors’ navigation between divergent normative systems. I exemplify my argument with two examples. First, I focus on the consultations associated to the review of the New Land Policy. Second, I analyze village mapping practices in selected rural areas of Tanzania.

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