Plantation designs in northern Mozambique: development, struggles and (re)compositions facing the ProSAVANA program

ABSTRACT

ProSAVANA was a technical cooperation program signed between the governments of Brazil, Japan, and Mozambique. Its aim was to promote agricultural development in the northern region of this African country. In this article, I give an ethnographic account of ProSAVANA’s implementation and the different struggles that emerged in opposition to its undertakings. As I describe, the program promoters constantly mobilized three allegories evocative of connections and flow in their fieldwork, speeches, or documents: parallels, chains, and corridors. Although, at the territorial level, these were connected to effects of isolation and fixation of the local population and their agriculture. Based on this controversy, I suggest that ProSAVANA can be understood as those world design projects that perform what Anna Tsing called a “plantation ecology,” that is, machines to produce the same, that operate to expand their scale while creating simplified, homogenized, and standardized models on diverse landscapes. Nevertheless, throughout the ProSAVANA implementation, their plantation designs were (re)composed both by technicians who aimed to promote its development model and by peasants and activists critical of the program, showing that these configurations alone cannot comprehensively circumscribe human agency.

RESUMO

O ProSAVANA foi um programa de cooperação técnica assinado entre os governos do Brasil, Japão e Moçambique, cujo objetivo era promover o desenvolvimento agrícola na região norte deste país africano. Neste artigo, apresento uma análise de cunho etnográfico sobre a implementação do ProSAVANA e as diferentes formas de lutas que surgiram em oposição aos seus empreendimentos. Conforme descrevo, os promotores do programa mobilizavam frequentemente três alegorias evocativas de conexões e fluxos em seus trabalhos de campo, discursos ou documentos: paralelos, cadeias e corredores. Ainda que, ao nível territorial, estes estivessem ligados a efeitos de isolamento e fixação da população local e da sua agricultura. Com base nessa controvérsia, sugiro que o ProSAVANA pode ser entendido como um dos projetos de design de mundos que realizam o que Anna Tsing chamou de “ecologia da plantation,” ou seja, máquinas para produzir o mesmo, que operam para expandir sua escala enquanto modelos simplificados, homogeneizados e padronizados de paisagens diversas. Contudo, ao longo da implementação do ProSAVANA, seus designs de plantations foram (re)compostos tanto por técnicos que visavam promover seu modelo de desenvolvimento, quanto por camponeses e ativistas críticos ao programa, mostrando que essas configurações sozinhas não podem circunscrever de forma abrangente a agência humana.

RESUMEN

ProSAVANA fue un programa de cooperación técnica suscrito entre los gobiernos de Brasil, Japón y Mozambique, cuyo objetivo fue promover el desarrollo agrícola en la región norte de este país africano. En este artículo presento un análisis etnográfico de la implementación de ProSAVANA y las diferentes formas de lucha que surgieron en oposición a sus emprendimientos. Como describo, los promotores del programa frecuentemente movilizaron tres alegorías evocadoras de conexiones y flujos en su trabajo de campo, discursos o documentos: paralelos, cadenas y corredores. Aunque, a nivel territorial, estos estaban vinculados a los efectos del aislamiento y asentamiento de la población local y su agricultura. Con base en esta controversia, sugiero que ProSAVANA puede entenderse como uno de los proyectos de diseño de mundos que realizan lo que Anna Tsing llamó “ecología de plantation,” es decir, máquinas para producir lo mismo, que operan para expandir su escala mientras simplifican, homogeneizan y estandarizan modelos de paisajes diversos. Sin embargo, a lo largo de la implementación de ProSAVANA, sus diseños de plantations fueron (re)compuestos tanto por técnicos que pretendían promover su modelo de desarrollo, como por campesinos y activistas críticos del programa, mostrando que estas configuraciones por sí solas no pueden circunscribir la agencia humana de manera integral.

KEYWORDS:

• Plantation
• development
• resistance
• international cooperation

PALAVRAS-CHAVE:

• Plantation
• desenvolvimento
• resistência
• cooperação internacional

PALABRAS CLAVE:

• Plantation
• desarrollo
• resistencia
• cooperación internacional

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Characterized as Savanna in the international classification, this biome constitutes the second largest Brazilian vegetation formation. Usually located in landscapes of extensive plateaus, its soils are old, deep, drained, and acidic, which does not impede the biome to show extremely diverse vegetation.

2 The research was supported by the Dissertation Fieldwork Grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the Brazilian Higher Education Personnel Improvement Coordination [Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior] (CAPES).

3 During these journeys through the Nacala Corridor I was able to visit the city of Nampula, the districts of Nacala Porto, Monapo (Monapo Vila and Netia locality), Erati Namapa, Ribaué, Malema (Malema Vila and Mutuali locality), Gurué and the city of Lichinga. In total, I visited 10 peasant communities and performed 53 interviews (some collective ones), in addition to many other moments of less formalized conversations and interactions with the various interlocutors (members of civil society, peasants, technicians, researchers, academics, government officials, diplomats, businessmen) with whom I kept in touch through visits to their offices or other workplaces and at events. All names mentioned throughout the article have been changed in order to maintain the anonymity of my interlocutors.

4 Land in Mozambique is state-owned, but it can be used by individual or collective private actors through an annual tax for fifty years, renewable for an equal period. For that, it is necessary to apply for a DUAT (Right to Use and Benefit from Land) and submit an investment proposal to the Mozambican government. Furthermore, peasant communities spread throughout the country have the right to traditional use and enjoyment of their lands (Mandamule 2017).

5 Meaning something like disentanglement. A play on words made by Marta, since des-envolvimento resonates with the word desenvolvimento [development] in Portuguese.

6 It is worth mentioning that some associations and cooperatives of small producers accepted to participate in the extension projects brought by ProSAVANA, despite expressing fears about the announced possibility of land grabbing. In the Lichinga region, for example, peasants and organizations that represented them seemed more open to the program activities than in Nampula city on the other side of the Nacala Corridor.

7 Historically, different projects of power in Mozambique have been against the peasants’ dispersed way of living. As pointed out by Gallo (2016), in the socialist rural planning projects, as well as the colonial settlements, the old land as a space for harvesting, cults, houses, corrals, and trees was replaced by an exclusively productive space, formatted by fences and aligned plots of land. However, the population developed several strategies to deny the colonial settlements and communal villages, the “government machambas.”

8 As Tsing states, this “plantation science” guides us to work for total control of plants and crops. Thus, “managers and experts, working together, must be able to manipulate relevant humans and non-humans” (2019, 59) to control indeterminacy. Furthermore, by making compositions with indetermination a “peasant science” would be closer to those practices and knowledge of traditional agricultural systems described by Carneiro Da Cunha (2017) and Morim De Lima et al. (2018): marked by a high level of heterogeneity, diversity, and dynamic adaptation of crops to the environment. They are also driven by principles (food, medicinal, artisanal, etc.) other than the maxim of productivity, traits of scientific/industrial logic of commercial agriculture.

9 The Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) was the movement that led the anti-colonial struggle and which today is configured as a political party, having been at the head of the main positions of the Mozambican government for 40 years.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Wenner-Gren Foundation: [Grant Number 9470].

Notes on contributors

Vanessa Parreira Perin

Vanessa P. Perin holds a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Graduate Program in Social Anthropology at the Federal University of São Carlos – São Paulo Brazil, developing research on the soybean supply chain and its techno-financial mechanisms for the continued expansion of the agricultural frontier through agribusiness.