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- Convenors:
-
David Anderson
(University of Warwick)
Maxmillian Chuhila (University of Dar Es Salaam )
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- Stream:
- History
- Location:
- David Hume, Lecture Theatre B
- Sessions:
- Thursday 13 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel examines the future visions of past development. Has rural development achieved the outcomes intended? How do local communities perceive the outcome of past schemes? What connections are seen between sequential schemes? What factors are responsible for the disruptions to development?
Long Abstract:
All development interventions in rural Africa are motivated by notions of making a better future. But does development succeed in creating the new communities and new economies that its planners envision? Do rural communities embrace such ideas to anticipate the 'benefits' of development in their daily lives? And to what extent have rural development interventions fulfilled the expectations of the planners, the implementers, and the communities who receive its 'gift'? This panel will look at the history of development planning in rural Africa, sketching out the visions of past schemes and evaluating their relative success in achieving the transformations they intended. The focus will be both on individual projects or programmes (viewed as 'events'), and upon the sequence of development interventions in a specific location (viewed as 'processes'). What constrains such schemes in their implementation, and are there any wider patterns to be drawn from comparing experience in different parts of the continent and across time? Has more recent development learned how to make better futures from its past experience? Are development schemes connected by common factors, and to what extent are their failures to do with disruptions that lie beyond the visions of their planners? The papers will span the past century, to include colonial development initiatives from the 1920s, up to the current trend for public-private partnerships in 'corridor development' programmes.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 13 June, 2019, -Paper short abstract:
This paper will focus on corridors for conservation and development in Tanzania, utilising the linear connotations of the corridor idea to think through temporality in conservation and development, and how this produces contested and complex spaces in Tanzania's Kilombero Valley.
Paper long abstract:
Development and conservation interventions in Tanzania come with their own temporal connotations: the former broadly suggesting linear progress, an onward march into the future; the latter, attempts to exclude such progress and arrest progress within a specified space hinting at nostalgia for a time before development. With its irresistible intimations of movement and mobility, the corridor as a tool for advancing both development and conservation aims offers particularly fertile ground for thinking about progress and change. In the Kilombero Valley, rural transformation has been shaped by temporal visions of the past/future, sometimes coming together in tense and productive moments, and sometimes clashing when met with realties of the present on the ground. In this paper I will explore some conservation and development programmes from the Valley's recent past and, using as a touchstone the idea of the corridor as a strategy for both conservation and development, explore connections between the past and possible trajectories for the future in this highly complex and rapidly changing landscape.
Paper short abstract:
This paper considers the evolution and legacies of development plans and possibilities for this 'rich and fertile' area of Tanzania. Focusing on settlement processes, it explores conceptualisations, successes and shortcomings against the changing political and economic landscapes.
Paper long abstract:
The Kilombero Valley has seen multiple development interventions in the past and been the focus of a number of unrealised visions. The considerable fertility of the region is cited in early colonial literature, yet by the late 1960s despite 'no lack of effort' it had proved 'impossible to make proper use of the potential.' Subsequent connected and disconnected initiatives over the past five decades continued attempts to realize this potential.
The sparsely populated nature of the area was key to its suitability for development and yet also a barrier to this same development. Throughout this period, settlement and resettlement can be viewed as a continuous theme and pivotal to the success or failure of interventions. This historical approach views the true legacies of development interventions as most acutely experienced and expressed by the communities at their centre. A cross-generational examination can provide valuable insight into intend and unintended outcomes and whether there was 'progress' or have past experiences merely led to a worse future.
Through this focus a general historical introduction to the development of the Kilombero Valley is told. The movement of people through resettlement and concentration of populations is as much the creation of communities as their disruption. This process is also seen as connecting disparate problems such as improving agricultural productivity, advancing infrastructure, improving administrative effectiveness, urban clearances of the poor and unemployed and their resettlement to rural areas and schemes to combat tsetse fly and sleeping-sickness.
Paper short abstract:
Since 2009, the Kilombero Valley is conceived as a cluster of the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT). Nevertheless The understanding of colonial and postcolonial memories of local inhabitants allows appreciating their reception of contemporary large-scale development plans.
Paper long abstract:
Since 2009, the Kilombero Valley is conceived as one of the seven clusters of the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT) and perceived as the "country breadbasket". Nevertheless, this attractiveness and imaginary around the fertility and the availability of water for large-scale development projects in the valley were already at the heart of colonial strategies. This contribution will bring an analysis of the consequences of major development projects from colonial era up to nowadays on the reconfigurations of social systems and local populations' resource governance systems.
The Kilombero Valley was at the heart of international economy before the German colonisation, through the slave trade routes, the ivory and rubber trade. Analysing each period of the History since the 1860s allows understanding the continuities and discontinuities in the means of controlling the resources and local populations, in particular through resettlement schemes, taxation, forced farming and large-scale plantations implementation. In the valley, the resulting evictions and mobility have shaped the valley, creating new villages in the increasingly narrow interstices between parks and industrial plantations. Plans to relocate or concentrate people in villages began under German colonial rule and were reinforced during British colonization, and continued in a different ways during the Ujamaa period. The first large plan for railways and industrial plantations began during the German colonization and several hydrological and geographical surveys were carried out after the First World War by the British. The understanding of the memory of local inhabitants allows appreciating their reception of contemporary large-scale development plans.