Challenge without Transformation: Refugees, Aid and Trade in Western Tanzania

Landau, Loren B.

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Title:	Challenge without Transformation: Refugees, Aid and Trade in Western Tanzania
Author:	Landau, Loren B.
Year:	2004
Periodical:	Journal of Modern African Studies
Volume:	42
Issue:	1
Period:	March
Pages:	31-59
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Tanzania
Subjects:	refugees Congolese (Democratic Republic of Congo) Burundians subsistence economy Miscellaneous (i.e. Demography, Refugees, Sports) Economics and Trade Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/3876173
Abstract:	Through a comparison of shifting material practices in two generally similar rural western Tanzanian districts (Kasulu and Mpwapwa), this paper traces the effects of a humanitarian influx - the arrival of Burundian and Congolese refugees and international relief - on the economic practices of the host population in one of these districts: Kasulu. Since 1995, Kasulu has experienced the influx of tens of thousands of refugees. The paper argues that, despite popular and government claims to the contrary, there is little evidence that the influx has effected a transformation of citizens' economic lives. While changes in exchange and resource use patterns have occurred in the five years since the influx began, they are not fundamental and many are better attributed to shifts in macroeconomic policy than to the refugees, the presence of the relief agencies or the distribution of humanitarian aid. The fact that the influx has not induced a shift towards increased market activity and capitalist modes of production not only challenges government and popular pronouncements, but also reaffirms the resilience of localized modes of production against external market pressures. Research was carried out in 1999-2000 by way of a mix of ethnographic and survey techniques. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]

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