Land and Labour Contestation in Manica, Mozambique: Historical Issues in Contemporary Dynamics

This chapter discusses issues of land access and rural development within the context of the policies pursued in the province of Manica, Mozambique, under the colonial and independent governments. It focuses on the relationship between land access and rural development on the one hand, and the distinctive element that characterised much of the discussion on Mozambique in the past, labour, on the other. Drawing on a number of research works centred on this area, and on the author research experience from the late 1990s to mid–2000s, this chapter explores how far the developments of the last two decades fit in with the history of a country in which labour has always been considered more important than land in shaping local politics and power relations in the country. Certainly, the current context has increased the visibility of issues related to land access and distribution, but these were not missing in previous historical periods; indeed, we need to understand them as part of a history of interdependence between land, labour and rural development. During the colonial period, one crucial factor was the command that the colonial state tried to exercise over surplus African labour through co–opting African authorities and limiting peasant mobility within the context of the forced–labour system. This last feature shaped local power relations and hindered the full development of African progressive farming. The early years of independence showed ambitious plans to reverse previous imbalances and exploitations, but also showed some points of continuity with the political practices of the colonial administration at a local level. After the war period, when Mozambique started to address this difficult heritage, it also hosted new investments from abroad, and new development programmes and policy reforms on land and natural resources were launched. In this context, the overall fertile province of Manica has again been the theatre of debate as to land contestation and about development options centring on the promotion of African progressive farmers. However, notwithstanding the fashionable arguments about land grabbing, it appears that, as in the past, land access per sè is not such a problem. Rather, in the light of the author specific research experience in a territory bordering on Zimbabwe, it is questioned to what extent local power bargaining on the control of the labour, mobility and settlement of African peasants may still be affecting, today as in the past, rural development prospects centered on the bolstering of medium and small–scale ‘advanced’ African farmers. Building on the few recent studies on the structure of the labour market in Manica and Mozambique, by throwing light on labour and power contestation from a historical perspective, may be a way forward.