The thesis is an inquiry into peasants’ collective organisation inMozambique since the country’s Independence in 1975. It brings togetherfour published studies and aims to understand the historical and socioeconomic conditions for different forms of peasant organisation in postIndependence Mozambique. An abductive approach is applied and adialogue between theory, method and the ethnographic material from thetwo northern provinces of Niassa and Nampula runs through the thesis. Thefirst study concludes that peasants’ organisation is hampered by thefragmentation, instability and unpredictability of peasants’ livelihood,leading to a low level of classness. The second study examines the strugglefor the right to land as an exception in terms of a broad-based collectiveorganisation. The third study explores how peasants’ memories of theindependence movement and first years of socialist policies are mobilisedin a critique against current policies. Finally, the fourth study examines thecontinuity of power of the traditional leadership at local level, providinginsights into the local structural conditions for peasants’ collectiveorganisation.Based on the four studies, the thesis suggests the following three mainconditions for peasants’ organisation: First, peasant household livelihood,where fragmentation, instability and unpredictability lead to difficulties toidentify central and enduring interests and conflicts peasants are engagedin, that could be the foundation for their collective organisation. Second, theorganisational structures and positions in peasant societies. In the contextof peasants, already occupied spaced for organisation, repression andhistorical backpack hamper their organisation. Peasants’ issues are capturedat local level by party, civil society and traditional leadership. Peasants arein abundance. And third, the peasants’ consciousness. The thesis concludesthat there is a relatively strong consciousness among peasants with regardto structure, inequalities, as well as formulation of thought, strong senseamong the elderly of peasant way and peasant society.

This article examines the reasons why peasants living in poverty are unlikely to form or join an organization defending their rights and interests. The study is based on ethnographically inspired fieldwork in the Niassa province, northern Mozambique, and takes peasants accounts of their livelihoods as the point of departure. The livelihood analysis is placed within a historical and structural process. The article suggests that four dimensions of fragmentation of peasants' livelihoods hamper the conditions for collective organizations. Firstly, every peasant household is, at any given point in time, engaged in a number of different livelihood activities to ensure its production and reproduction. Secondly, the composition of these activities varies between households. Thirdly, the activities are constantly changing. Fourthly, there is socio-economic differentiation among peasant households. These four dimensions make it difficult to identify central and enduring interests and conflicts peasants are engaged in that could be the foundation for their collective organization.

Este artigo examina as razões pelas quais os camponeses que vivem em pobreza têm pouca probabilidade de formar ou integrar uma organização que defenda os seus direitos e interesses. O estudo é baseado em trabalho de campo, inspirado pela etnografia, na província de Niassa, no norte de Moçambique, e tem como ponto de partida os relatos dos camponeses sobre os seus meios de subsistência. A análise da subsistência é inserida num processo histórico e estrutural. O artigo sugere que quatro dimensões de fragmentação dos meios de subsistência dos camponeses dificultam as condições para as organizações coletivas. Em primeiro lugar, cada família camponesa está, em qualquer momento, envolvida em várias atividades de subsistência diferentes para garantir a sua produção e reprodução. Em segundo lugar, a composição dessas atividades varia entre as famílias. Em terceiro lugar, as atividades mudam constantemente. Em quarto lugar, há diferenciação socioeconómica entre as famílias camponesas. Estas quatro dimensões tornam difícil a identificação dos interesses e conflitos centrais e duradouros em que os camponeses estão engajados e que poderiam constituir a base da sua organização coletiva.

Det småskaliga privatskogsbruket har intresserat beslutsfattare och forskare i flera decennier. Idag kan vi därför tala om ett förhållandevis omfattande kunskaps- och forskningsfält om skogsägare. I föreliggande översiktsstudie beskrivs och analyseras den här litteraturens övergripande mönster i termer av dess resultat, metoder och vetenskapliga utgångspunkter. Ett återkommande analytiskt tema och mål i litteraturen är att identifiera olika ”skogsägartyper” eller subkategorier av skogsägare. Dessa typologier bygger vanligen på en mix mellan eller ett särskilt fokus på någon av följande dimensioner: a) skogsägares värderingar, attityder och mål b) skogsägares beslut och handlingar eller c) skogsägargruppens strukturella egenskaper. Av dessa är den första undersökningsdimensionen mest välstuderad, typologierna konstrueras ofta med fokus på skogsägares olika mål med sin skog. Ett annat kännetecken för forskningen är dess kvantitativa profil. Postenkäter och klusteranalys tillhör några av de vanligaste teknikerna för datainsamling och analys. Vidare präglas forskningen av en relativ avsaknad av teoretisk diversitet och förankring; utgångspunkterna är praktiska och åtgärdsinriktade snarare än teoretiska. 

Different regimes, same leadership – on the logic of the local field of power in rural Mozambique. The article examines how traditional leaders in Mozambique have maintained their positions of power and under which circumstances they have been challenged throughout Portuguese colonialism, the first years of Independence with Marxist policies, and present day multiparty democracy and market society. The article, using ethnographic field material from northern Mozambique in combination with Bourdieu’s theoretical framework, concludes that the key symbolic capital of the traditional leaders is the defence of dignity (dignidade) of people, materialised in the land. This capital is the resource that defines challenges and continuity in the local fields of power, explaining their relative immunity towards legal and formal changes in macro level policy. Immunity towards social and political changes on the local level has created another, paralel, history of Mozambique that is influenced by, but not similar to, the grand, episodic Mozambiquian modern history.

Reflections on contemporary class formation in Mozambique

At the time of Mozambique’s independence, Frelimo, the former liberation movement that was turned into a political party, aimed to address the country’s “underdevelopment” through socialist policies and rapid modernisation. The peasantry was to be transformed into agriculture workers to form a working class with the industrial proletariat working in the state run industries. The socialist dream was interrupted by a destabilisation war raging until 1992. By the time of the peace accords the country was a market economy and has since become an economic growth success story. However, poverty levels have stagnated with over half of the population living in absolute poverty.

This presentation explores how political consciousness is created and expressed in contemporary Mozambique, departing from two cases: First, the rise in large-scale agriculture investments currently taking place, generating struggles over land. Peasants increasingly organise to protest against not only the investors but also, more overall, the current development model. The second case is the expressions of urban discontent through food riots in Maputo 2008 and 2010. The riots were sparked by rise in the price of basic goods such as bread and water, but the rioters, alike the peasants, expressed a more profound critique against current neoliberal developments. Both the peasants’ movement and the food rioters refer to the fact that the still ruling Frelimo has turned against the values for which they all fought. The presentation will discuss how these two processes could be understood jointly in terms of possible conditions for formation of one class in and for itself. 

This paper departs from experience and reflections from eight years working as a development practitioner within civil society support programmes on popular participation, governance, agriculture, land rights, accountability and at grass-root level in rural settings in Mozambique and Afghanistan. The reflections are based on in-depth experiences from the two countries mentioned above but also on shorter experiences from several other countries in Southern and East Africa and Latin America.

Support to civil society is for many bilateral development agencies an important part of their portfolio with considerable amounts allocated. As an example, the 2014 civil society allocation of the Swedish development agency Sida, is 1, 7 billion at central level alone (the so called frame agreements), excluding programmes negotiated at country or embassy level. There are trends on what donor support within civil society both in terms of approaches as well as thematic directions. During my years working with Swedish NGOs such as Swedish Africa Groups, We Effect (formerly Swedish Cooperative Centre) and Swedish Committee for Afghanistan, several critical reflections both on the modality and content of aid have arose. Below I will briefly mention some of them that will be further developed in the paper.

Firstly, at the same time as the international aid community states that its support is based on the ownership and agenda of the partner organisations and on the interest and rights of poor people, it seems to (still) decide the priorities. My observation from having worked with grass-root level associations in two of the poorest countries in the world (Afghanistan 175st and Mozambique 185th place in UNDP HDI list, where 186 is the last), is that poor people mobilise around material and rather short-term objectives, such as increased agriculture production, and less on long-term claims of for example political accountability. On the other hand, this short-term mobilisation has good opportunities to lay the solid foundation for a more long-term commitment. Donors, quite on the contrary, on beforehand decide their civil society programmes to focus on social and political accountability and political reform and advocacy, and that results at this level should be immediate and not as a result of a longer process. The two worlds seem to be far apart.

The second problematic aspect concerns the actual ownership and the impact of the donor driven setting of the agenda where organisations develop their programmes based on funding opportunities. This creates a situation where civil society organisations risk becoming a deliverer of a result to donors, instead of defining their own programmes based on the interest of their constituencies. Civil society organisations following donor demands testify that the formal donor demands make them come further away from their constituencies. There are also numerous examples of organisations changing their whole agenda as funding opportunities change. One example is the excessive funding to aids organisations that was seen in the late 90’s early 00’s that is now on a clear decrease. Accountability becomes a practice that is performed to donors and that is demanded from government but that is rarely given priority within the organisations; between its leaders and its constituency. 

Thirdly, as described above, donors presently tend to prefer to support strengthened citizens’ voice for enhanced social and political accountability. However, of the numerous programmes I have encountered targeting this, and studies carried out within them, the focus, together with the resources, tend to stay at the national level organisations or in the urban centres. Hence, it is problematic to claim that we are talking about citizens’ voice and accountability, in a broader sense, since the organisations included have limited constituencies and legitimacy speak on behalf of a larger share of the population. At the same time, the modern civil society organisations speak of themselves as the representative of the people – sometimes even representing them in the dialogue with the (assumedly elected) government.

In the full paper I will develop these and other arguments around the role of different actors in the aid chain, based on experience from being in the broker in the middle; between the donor agencies and the target group.