accumulation by land dispossession and labor ... - Land Portal

interest‘. And ‗public interest‘, judges keep reminding us, is the same as state interest
(Shivji 2006: 7)
Attracting investors is now a state interest. It is thus a ‗public interest‘. To such interests
we turn.
3.0 The State of Land Grabbing in Tanzania
Land Grabbing, or Land Grab, is the term most commonly used to characterize the
current wave of large-scale land transactions, particularly in Africa. The International
Land Coalition (ILC) provides a broad conceptual framework in regard to the definition
of this current wave of land acquisition. According to Michael Taylor & Tim Bending
(2009) of ILC, it is termed as commercial pressure or investment depending on position
of those who use them. This battle for definitions with respect to one‘s ideological
positionality is captured well by the following contrasting definitions by Khadija Sharife
(2009) and Kanayo Nwanze – as quoted by Paul Virgo (2009) – respectively: ―Large-
scale purchase or lease of farmland (often packaged as ‗idle‘, ‗under-utilised‘ and
‗uncultivated‘) in ‗land-rich developing regions‖; ―It is the wrong language to call them
land grabs. They are investments in farmland like investments in oil exploration.‖ The
former definition is from a radical activist based at the Centre for Civil Society (CCS)
whilst the latter is from the president of the International Fund for Agricultural
Development (IFAD).
It is tempting to conclude, alongside fellow strong critics of land grab such as the Land
Equity Movement in Uganda (LEMU) and ILC, that land grab implies accumulation of
land holdings through illegal and/or illegitimate means or simply ―means deliberately and
illegally taking away someone else‘s land rights‖ (LEMU 2009: 1). But this conclusion
has to be qualified as there are incidences whereby land acquisitions in the light of the
domestic policy frameworks and legal systems are sanctioned. As such there are at least
two typologies of land grabs, that is, illegal and legal – or more appropriately, legalised –
land grabs. In the case of Tanzania, land grabs, especially those of ‗village land‘, are
legally sanctioned through procedures for land acquisition.
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