The Informalization of Formal Portuguese Controls on People’s Movements and Identity in the Colony of Mozambique. The Heritage of Portuguese Colonialism in Current Local African Politics

This article describes some of the continuities and discontinuities between the colonial and postcolonial eras in central Mozambique. Recent land, development and environmental reforms have given a central role to the ‘traditional African rural community’ and the ‘traditional leader’. Community participation in decision making is now enshrined in law. This has led to the revival of relationships and, in some cases, practices which grew up during the colonial era. Relationships and power-bargaining between the colonial state and traditional authorities had been focused on land management and control over labour and population movement. After independence, both Frelimo and Renamo considered the control people and their labour to be a decisive factor in the civil war and reintroduced controls through so-called guias de marcha. The new role now accorded to traditional leaders means that they have begun to apply informal mechanisms of control on people's movement and on the right to settlement and land use, functions which previously they had exercised as agents of the colonial government.