Setting the Stake: Common and Private Interests in the Redefinition of Resources and their Access in the Machangulo Peninsula, Mozambique

Abstract

"Human history is largely a history of occupation. Different groups invade an area and, by setting their stakes, claim its resources. Bonds all over the globe have become more and more important as to whose stakes are successfully planted and what destination the claimed resource will have. Even the emergence of an African political entity such as the Maputo Kingdom cannot be isolated from global trade in beads, cloth and ivory. For Machangulo, the emergence of such political entities and their subsequent subjection by the colonial state implied integration in and increasing submission to a global order. Yet, at least until today, local definitions as to the nature of resources and the relation between man and these resources prevail. The stakes set by outsiders remained at the margin defined by the colonial system of indirect rule, just as the palisade nets remained outside the Peninsula on the adjacent tidal plains.

"On the Peninsula, in a landscape profoundly shaped by community rules as resource use, land remained outside the market, as did most of the area's agricultural produce. Cattle - in particular on the southern half of the Peninsula - and to a lesser extent, cashew and mafurra, constituted the nexus between agricultural production and the market. Market connections were more important in connection to labour. Labour was commodified as the Peninsula's inhabitants increasingly exploited employment opportunities across the border with South Africa.

"The arrival of the American entrepreneur Blanchard is likely to transform profoundly that situation. Bypassing local and regional administrative structures, Blanchard obtained a 'development contract' including landtitle over 800 ha and the right to create a nature reserve and sell plots in another 15,200 ha in Machangulo. If his project will be implemented, land and landscape will be commodified. 'Nature' and 'construction licenses' will be sold at the global tourism and estate markets to foreign and national urban elites. The fate of Machangulo, once only on the fringe of political and economic developments, has become tied to a globalisation process around new commodities.

"The social impacts of this transformation are difficult to foresee. Locally, benefits in the shape of employment and income might surpass the costs. On the other hand, population resettlement and the arrival of newcomers might increase social tension when their numbers surpass the accomodation capacity of traditional tenure arrangements. At a higher level, Mamdani's lucid analysis of the problems of African states cited earlier indicates that more might be at stake. The lack of local involvement in decision making, the racial dimension of tourism, and the unequal external relations of dependency inherent to the project's setup might well reinforce the incipient divisions along racial and ethnic lines at the expense of democracy and development."