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Engendering the New Enclosures: Development, Involuntary Resettlement and the Struggles for Social Reproduction in Coastal Tanzania
Author(s) -
Chung Youjin Brigitte
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
development and change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.267
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1467-7660
pISSN - 0012-155X
DOI - 10.1111/dech.12288
Subject(s) - tanzania , livelihood , reproduction , social reproduction , pastoralism , sociology , gender studies , economic growth , political science , socioeconomics , geography , economics , social science , ecology , agriculture , social capital , livestock , archaeology , forestry , biology
This article engages with the feminist concept of ‘social reproduction’ to arrive at a richer understanding of the gendered processes and outcomes of contemporary large‐scale land acquisitions, or the ‘new enclosures’. It focuses on the case of a recent land deal for industrial sugarcane production in the Coast Region of Tanzania and the resultant process of involuntary resettlement. It critically analyses people's struggles for land in the face of imminent displacement, and the gendered ways they experience the erosion of their pre‐existing modes of social reproduction. It argues that enclosure of rural landscapes does more than immediately strip peasants and pastoralists of their means of production and turn them into wage labourers. It gradually uproots them from their socio‐ecological knowledges, cultural practices and historical memories, which are rooted on the land and articulated through gender. The highly uncertain processes of enclosure and displacement also force rural women and men to renegotiate their livelihood strategies and intra‐household gender relations.