Description
Book SynopsisA long-term analysis of development projects in rural Tanzania, tracing the improvised, reactive nature of small-scale interventions, aimed at staving off the threat posed by acute poverty to local governments' legitimacy and effectiveness.
Trade Review'The Politics of Poverty thus complements the existing literature on development and poverty in Tanzania, offering another historical account that is anthropologically informed, environmentally minded, and attuned to political-economic dynamics … Practitioners and scholars of development, particularly those with an interest in Tanzania and rural areas more generally, will find this book a useful addition to their libraries.' Jessica Pouchet, International Journal of African Historical Studies
'The Politics of Poverty successfully provides a detailed historical account of a relatively understudied region - Southeast Tanzania - and at the same time a balanced reflection on development relevant to broader histories of colonial and post-colonial Africa … [It] undoubtedly constitutes an excellent endeavour and will contribute greatly to Africanist and development historiography.' Michele Sollai, Connections
'It will be of interest to any scholar wanting a more intimate and complicated portrayal of the developmentalist machine that endures in the twenty-first century in regions across the global South.' Muey Ching Saeteurn, Agricultural History
Table of ContentsIntroduction; 1. The end of slavery, famine and food aid in Tunduru; 2. Changing configurations of poverty in the colonial Southeast and the myth of communalism; 3. The struggle to trade; 4. Independence and the rhetoric of feasibility; 5. Villagisation and the pursuit of market access; 6. The politics of development in the era of liberalisation; 7. Performing and pursuing development in Kineng'ene; Conclusion; Bibliography.