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SELF-RELIANCE AND THE STATE: THE MULTIPLE MEANINGS OF DEVELOPMENT IN EARLY POST-COLONIAL TANZANIA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2012

Priya Lal
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Abstract

This article uses a key principle of the Tanzanian ujamaa project – self-reliance – as an analytical lever to open up the historical landscape of development politics in that national context during the 1960s and early 1970s. Throughout this period Tanzanians understood and experienced self-reliance in a variety of ways: as a mandated developmental strategy or a collective developmental aspiration, a condition of dignity or privation, a hallmark of national citizenship or a reflection of local survivalism, a matter of luxury or necessity. I trace these multiple meanings through three distinct but overlapping fields of inquiry: first, by cataloguing the plural ideological registers indexed by self-reliance within official development discourse vis-à-vis domestic and international politics; second, by illuminating a diverse range of rural elders' accounts of ujamaa villagization and self-reliance policy in the south-eastern region of Mtwara; and third, by examining the ambivalent position of self-reliance within public debates about regional development in relation to the national scale. In doing so, I expose the dialectical friction between competing constructions of citizenship and development at the heart of ujamaa, and suggest new avenues forward for conceptualizing the afterlives of ‘self-reliance’ and the changing meaning of development in contemporary Tanzania and beyond.

Résumé

Cet article se sert du principe clé du projet tanzanien ujamaa, l'autonomie, comme d'un levier analytique pour découvrir le paysage historique de la politique de développement dans ce contexte national pendant les années 1960 et au début des années 1970. Tout au long de cette période, les Tanzaniens ont compris et vécu l'autonomie de diverses manières : comme une stratégie de développement mandatée ou une aspiration collective au développement, une condition de dignité ou de privation, une marque de citoyenneté nationale ou le reflet d'un survivalisme local, un luxe ou une nécessité. L'auteur étudie ces sens multiples à travers trois champs d'analyse distincts qui se recouvrent partiellement : d'abord, en cataloguant les registres idéologiques pluriels indexés par l'autonomie dans le cadre du discours de développement officiel concernant la politique domestique et internationale ; ensuite, en mettant en lumière la diversité de ce que relatent les anciens ruraux de la politique ujamaa de villagisation et d'autonomie dans la région de Mtwara, dans le Sud-Est du pays ; enfin, en examinant la position ambivalente de l'autonomie dans le débat public sur le développement régional par rapport à l’échelle nationale. Ce faisant, l'article expose la friction dialectique entre des constructions concurrentes de citoyenneté et de développement au cœur de l'ujamaa, et suggère de nouvelles pistes pour conceptualiser les incarnations futures de l'autonomie et la signification changeante du développement dans la Tanzanie contemporaine et au-delà.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 82 , Issue 2 , May 2012 , pp. 212 - 234
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2012

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