Mobile Applications to Secure Tenure in Rural Tanzania

Astrid Matejcek,Julia Verne

doi:10.3384/cu.1535

Abstract

In light of climate change, projected population growth, increasing conflicts over land and the question of food security, the Tanzanian government takes the respective visions of environmental futures as a cause and justification for particular measures in the here and now. One such modality through which agricultural futures in the Kilombero Valley are currently made present and decided upon is the use of the Mobile Application to Secure Tenure (MAST). Through the use of this application, on the one hand, a more capital-friendly land legislation should be developed. On the other hand, by issuing Certificates of Customary Rights of Occupancy (CCRO), which are supposed to offer a certain security to current land users, expected conflicts are sought to be reduced and prevented. Thus, by examining the use of MAST and the particular ways in which it renders possible futures actionable, we contribute to ongoing research that aims to illustrate how “humans [...] do not own and shape ‘their’ future alone” (Granjou et al. 2017: 8). While such technologies are generally developed and employed to increase certainty, following the implementation and effects of MAST, in particular, we will show how the specific materiality of this mobile application not only allows to secure tenure, but at the same time creates new insecurities that contribute to the complex emergence of environmental futures in this part of rural Tanzania.

Highlights

Uncertain environmental futures, projected population growth and the question of food security have come to shape the visions for African agriculture in a particular way
Whether euphoric or fearful, contribute in particular ways to what has been called a “regime of anticipation” (Mackenzie 2013: 391), a state characterized by a thinking and living toward the future (Adams et al 2009: 246)
While some see huge potential in “awakening a sleeping giant” through agricultural intensification, others rather fear a rise of conflicts and resource degradation

Summary

Introduction

Uncertain environmental futures, projected population growth and the question of food security have come to shape the visions for African agriculture in a particular way. By examining the use of MAST in the Kilombero Valley in this article, we set to emphasize the notion that “anticipation includes more than acts of representation and their effects on how people perceive future possibilities” (Groves 2017) Focusing on this digital technology and the particular ways in which it renders possible futures actionable, we contribute to ongoing research that aims to illustrate how “humans [...] do not own and shape ‘their’ future alone” (Granjou et al 2017: 8). MAST has been piloted in parts of Burkina Faso, Zambia and Tanzania with the stated aims to (among others) prevent and mitigate conflicts over land and resources, create incentives to improve agricultural productivity, enable more responsible land-based investment, and to lay the ground for an efficient and sustainable natural resource management (Msigwa et al 2018, USAID 2019), seemingly being a perfect tool to anticipate environmental futures in the Kilombero Valley

MAST in Practice

Conclusion