Paper short abstract:

This paper will discuss proposals regarding African land tenure in calls for "rural development" in late colonial Mozambique

Paper long abstract:

Drawing on evidence from Mozambique, this paper will discuss the concepts of "rural planning", "rural/communitarian development" and "cooperativism" as put forth in the post-war period by experts in Portugal and in its African colonies, and focus specifically on their proposals regarding land tenure for Africans. It will interpret these concepts in the light of 1920s and 1930s calls for an agrarian intervention in African production. As a means of addressing Portuguese mercantile interests' demands for agricultural commodities and the decline of settler farming, worsened by the Great Depression, plans created under this framework included cash crop expansion, the promotion of "rational" agricultural practices and technical assistance for Africans, but also population displacement and resettlement. In contrast to previous legislation which excluded the majority of Africans from land tenure and viewed them mostly as squatters, these plans proposed new views concerning African land access and use. This transformation was justified by the need to increase yields and by a narrative on the improvement of living standards for Africans, but it was also based on paternalism and coercion, elements which were also present in post-1945 calls for African "rural development". The paper will also analyse these concepts and policies designed in this context in Mozambique in the light of the international circulation of policies and techniques regarding "development" in post-war Africa.