“Isto foi sempre assim”. The Politics of Land and Human Mobility in Chimanimani, Central Mozambique

Based on recent field-work inside the Trans-Frontier Conservation Area (TFCA) of Chimanimani in Sussundenga District, Mozambique, this article tries to make sense of apparently contradictory dynamics in two rural communities of the northern Mozambican side of the TFCA. On the one hand, African traditional authorities are favouring immigration in the territories under their influence, while, on the other, the same authorities are agreeing with their communities to adopt controls on people’s identity and movements of the kind reminiscent of colonial passes or Frelimo’s guias de marcha. The article interprets this contradiction by placing current social processes in an historical perspective and by examining the impact of recent government reforms, particularly decentralisation, a new land law and new approaches to natural resource management. The article argues that in the context of the opportunities and challenges introduced by these policies, particularly traditional authorities’ responsibilites for tax collection and notions of territorially bounded rural community, Chimanimani traditional authorities are making use of old and new instruments – community borders and guias – to preserve particular individual and group interests.