Land titling and tenure (in) security in Tanzania

353 Pages·2017·2.7 MB·English

by  Anne Fitzgerald

Wearing an amulet: Land titling and
tenure (in) security in Tanzania

A dissertation presented by Anne Fitzgerald to the Department of Anthropology
in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
in Anthropology

Maynooth University
Department of Anthropology
February 2017

Head of Department: Dr Mark Maguire

Supervisor: Dr Abdullahi El Tom
Contents

Abstract .................................................................................................................................... iv
Declaration ................................................................................................................................ v
Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................. vi
List of Acronyms ...................................................................................................................... vii
Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 1
Locating Land Reform in Tanzania....................................................................................... 10
Methodology ....................................................................................................................... 16
Thesis Questions .................................................................................................................. 19
Imagining Tradition ............................................................................................................. 20
Loans for Development ....................................................................................................... 26
Bourdieu and the Theory of Practice .................................................................................. 27
Doing Ethnography .............................................................................................................. 34
Layout of the thesis ............................................................................................................. 47
Chapter One – The Road to Development .............................................................................. 50
The Fetish of ‘Development’ ............................................................................................... 50
The Rush for African Land ................................................................................................... 51
The Schemes and Dreams of Development ........................................................................ 56
Developing Tanzania – Yesterday’s dreams ........................................................................ 63
The SAGCOT Scheme – Dreaming of development today................................................... 67
The Presidential Commission of Enquiry into Land Matters – The Shivji Commission (1994)
............................................................................................................................................. 75
National Land Policy 1995 ................................................................................................... 79
The World Bank – Donors, consultants and workshops...................................................... 84
The Land Laws of Tanzania 1999 ......................................................................................... 89
Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 96
Chapter Two - MKURABITA in Manyoni: Three Villages, Four Years and a Printer Cartridge . 98
Village Structures and Land Use Planning ......................................................................... 100
The Strategic Plan for the Implementation of the Land Laws (SPILL) ............................... 105
Formalising the Informal ................................................................................................... 108
Ground level bureaucracy ................................................................................................. 116
MKURABITA in Manyoni District ....................................................................................... 118
Waiting for Formalisation .................................................................................................. 119
Social Differentiation ......................................................................................................... 124
Hoping for tenure security ................................................................................................ 128
Land Use Planning ............................................................................................................. 130
The Local Land Market ...................................................................................................... 132
The District Office .............................................................................................................. 135
Debt and Development ..................................................................................................... 139
Women’s Access to Land ................................................................................................... 145
Land Disputes .................................................................................................................... 149
Endgame ............................................................................................................................ 151
Chapter Three - Monduli District: pastoralists and agro-pastoralists ................................... 156
Becoming Maasai .............................................................................................................. 157
Dispossession through Conservation: ‘Museum Parks without People’ ........................... 165
Good Fences Make Good Neighbours – Mapping the Boundaries of Village Lands ......... 182
A Tale of Two Villages ........................................................................................................ 185
The Disputed Territory ...................................................................................................... 187
The Amulet: Formalisation as Protection .......................................................................... 194
Disputing Processes ........................................................................................................... 198
Loans.................................................................................................................................. 201
Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 202
Chapter Four - The Gendered Life of Things ......................................................................... 205
Woman’s Work/Men’s Work ............................................................................................ 209
Family Matters: Women’s Access to Land ........................................................................ 216
Inheritance Rules ............................................................................................................... 223
Women of Manyoni District .............................................................................................. 230
Legacies ............................................................................................................................. 232
Gendered Access to Land and Livestock in Monduli District ............................................ 235
Female and male breadwinners ........................................................................................ 236
Rights to Land .................................................................................................................... 239
Civil Society Activism ......................................................................................................... 243
Women and the Land Law ................................................................................................. 248
Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 253
Chapter Five - The Disputing Process .................................................................................... 255
Justice and the ‘Have Nots’ ............................................................................................... 257
Legal Pluralism ................................................................................................................... 261
ii
The Living Law ................................................................................................................... 265
Legal Traps: Emboley Murtangos- Kiteto District ............................................................. 268
Legal Tropes....................................................................................................................... 276
The Disputing Process in Manyoni District ........................................................................ 278
Legal Aid in Morogoro ....................................................................................................... 288
Telesia’s Story .................................................................................................................... 290
What Chance for the ‘Have Nots? ..................................................................................... 297
Chapter Six – Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 299
Semi-autonomous villages ................................................................................................ 305
Getting Justice ................................................................................................................... 313
Post script .............................................................................................................................. 316
ANNEX A ................................................................................................................................ 319
Map of Tanzania and research field sites, Manyoni district in Singida Region and Monduli
district in Arusha Region. ...................................................................................................... 319
ANNEX B ................................................................................................................................ 320
Map of Tanzania with National Parks .................................................................................... 320
ANNEX C ................................................................................................................................ 321
Main bodies responsible for the administration of the Land Disputes Resolution system .. 321
Bibliography ....................................................................................................................... 322

iii
Abstract
Land reform in Tanzania introduced a new National Land Policy (1995) and Land Laws
(1999), changing the way land is governed and administrated. The land reform process
promoted formalisation of customary land rights as a means to tenure security for the
citizens. This ethnography found that possession of a land title does not guarantee
tenure security; when land held under customary rights is allocated by the state for
investors or encroached upon by the wealthy and well connected. Nevertheless, land
titling is undertaken strategically by each of the three groups who form the core of this
ethnography to achieve their different goals: MKURABITA – a government sponsored
programme, the Community Organisation for Research and Development Services
(CORDS) – a pastoralist NGO, and the smallholders and pastoralists village residents,
to achieve their different goals. The government of Tanzania are focussed on attracting
inward investment, loans and development. Civil society groups promote titling for
their members as a defensive mechanism against encroachment and smallholders and
pastoralists hope that having a title deed just might swing a case in their favour.

iv
Declaration

I hereby state that this dissertation has not been submitted in part or in whole to any
other institution and is, except where otherwise stated, the original work of the author.

Signed __________________

v
Acknowledgements

I want to thank my supervisor Dr Abdullahi El Tom whose patience and belief in my
project was unwavering. This research would not have been possible without the help
and support from the staff at Maynooth University, including Ms Denise Erdmann and
Ms Jacqui Mulally. I was very fortunate in my choice of two research assistants, Denis
Kobelo and Emanuel Ndulet, and cannot thank them enough. They showed great
patience and understanding, and made the fieldwork in Tanzania such an enriching
experience. To my informants the villages, homes and shops, in Tanzania, too many
to mention, thank you for sharing your experiences and opinions so openly. I wish to
say a special thanks to Dr Catriona Coen, whose endless encouragement kept me going,
even when I wanted to give up. Last, but not least, my family, my dear sister Maura,
who always believed in me, and my children, David, Sallay, Emma and Thomas, whose
support got me to the finish line. A grateful thanks to the Pat and John Hume
Scholarship programme which supported my research.

vi
List of Acronyms

BLC Board of Land Commissioners
CCRO Certificate of Customary Rights of Occupancy
CGRO Certificate of Granted Rights of Occupancy
CBNRM Community Based Natural Resource Management
CORDS Community Organisation for Research and Development
Services
CVL Certificate of Village Land
CVL Certificate of Village Land
DLO District Land Office
EARC East Africa Royal Commission
ERM Environmental Resource Management
GDP Gross Domestic Product
GLTF Gender Land Task Force
GoT Government of Tanzania
GPS Global Positioning System
Haki Ardhi/LARRI Land Rights Research and Resources Institute
HDI Human Development Index
IFAD The International Fund for Agricultural Development
ILD Institute of Liberty and Democracy
IMF International Monetary Fund
LHRC Legal and Human Rights Centre
LTSG Land Tenure Study Group
LUP Land Use Planning
MC Ministerial Committee
MKURABITA Mpango wa Kurasimisha Rasilimali na Biashare za Wanyonge
Tanzania. (Property and Business Formalisation Programme).
MLHHSD Ministry of Lands, Housing and Human Settlements
Development
MNRT Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism
NAFSN New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition
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NCAA Ngorngoro Crater Conservation Area Authority
NGO Non-governmental Organisation
NLC National Land Commission
NLP National Land Policy
NORAD Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation
NVRS National Village Re-settlement Scheme
PLUM Participatory Land Use Planning
PWC Pastoral Women’s Council
RLO Regional Land Office
SAGCOT Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania
SPILL Strategic Plan for the Implementation of the Land Laws
TANAPA Tanzania National Parks Authority
TIC Tanzania Investment Centre
TNRF Tanzania Natural Resource Forum
TR & D Tropical Research and Development Inc
UCRT Ujamaa Community Resource Team
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
URT United Republic of Tanzania
VICOBA Village Bank
VLUP Village Land Use Plan
WMA Wildlife Management Areas
WSRTF Wildlife Sector Review Task Force
.

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Wearing an amulet: Land titling and tenure (in) security in Tanzania

Figure 1 Devotional Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel
Catholic religious objects blessed by a priest and worn as a sign of devotion to the faith
and protection against losing the faith.
‘amulets – were magically potent objects worn for protection against witchcraft,
illness, the evil eye, accidents, robbery, etc., also to enhance love, wealth, power, or
victory. Houses, walls, and towns could be protected in the same way. Any kind of
material might be employed: stones and metals as well as (parts of) animals and plants,
since, to every sort of material could be attributed an inherent ‘magical’ virtue….
Belief in amulets remained active in Greece and Italy in all classes of the population
throughout antiquity and into modern times’ (Oxford Dictionary of Classical World
2007).

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