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‘We are not farmers’: Dilemmas and prospects of residential suburban cultivators in contemporary Dar es Salaam, Tanzania*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

Geoffrey Ross Owens
Geoffrey Ross Owens*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Wright State University, 3640 Colonel Glenn Highway, Dayton OH 45435, USA
*
Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Today, a majority of citizens of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, participate in suburban and exurban growth and development much like urbanites throughout the world. Unlike the garden suburbs of North America or Europe, Dar es Salaam's suburban residents often engage in multiple income-generating activities, the most common and conspicuous of which are cultivation and animal husbandry. The presence of urban farming has suggested that Dar es Salaam's residents represent peasants incrementally transitioning to urban life. This article however, contends that everything from the varieties of cultivation, access to land and water, to the definition of what it means to be a farmer is shaped by decentralised private interests controlling access to land and resources in suburban neighbourhoods. The varieties of cultivation and animal husbandry instead reflect socioeconomic class distinctions emerging from a new suburban political economy, enabling a clearer perspective on the prospects of cultivators as these suburban districts transform.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 54 , Issue 3 , September 2016 , pp. 443 - 467
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank the Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology, and the Government of the United Republic of Tanzania for their kind permission and assistance with my research in 1998, 1999 and 2010. Research was made possible through a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant and a Wenner-Gren Foundation Post-Ph.D. Research Grant. I would also like to acknowledge the assistance of Mary Kilawe, undergraduate research assistant at the University of Dar es Salaam, Drs Chigon Kim and Marlese Durr, and the anonymous reviewers.

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