Department of Development Studies, Political Science and Public Administration, and History

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Acquiring Human Capital Skills through Labour Migrancy: The Case of Colonial Njombe District, 1900-1960s
(Hipatia Press, 2016-07-30) Mgaya, Edward
The migration of labourers to centres of mining, plantations and industrial production has been one of the most important demographic features of the African continent since its incorporation into the capitalist money economy. It is, however, surprisingly that the influence of this phenomenon on rural transformations remains largely unexplored. Most of studies have addressed the negative consequences of labour on the local communities. This is the impression that this paper aims to correct by using colonial Njombe as a case study. While not denying the detrimental impacts of labour migration, the paper integrates written and oral information to establish that such exclusive attribution of rural underdevelopment to labour migration was indeed a traditional way of viewing labour migration. Such views were mainly a result of macro-economic cost-benefit analysis that economists have always considered and emphasized upon. This article, therefore, is an effort to go beyond such economic arena by considering the acquisition of human capital particularly linking labour migration with western education and the spread of the Kiswahili language. Drawing from transformational approaches, this article argues that knowledge and skills that Njombe migrant labourers got from different work places, imbued them with elements which knowingly or unknowingly became part of the instruments for the wider rural transformations
Africa’s Leadership Challenges in the 21st Century: What Can Leaders Learn from Africa’s Pre-Colonial Leadership and Governance?
(RedFame, 2015-04-09) Poncian, Japhace; Mgaya, Edward
Africa continues to face serious development challenges despite recent record growth rates. Such challenges as dependency, corruption, underdeveloped infrastructure and production sectors, and leadership and governance are some of the impediments to Africa’s quest for sustainable and equitable development. Explaining such development challenges has continued to elude scholars. To the radical leftist scholars, Africa’s underdevelopment can adequately be explained by its forceful and uneven integration into the global economic system. However, with over fifty years of independence, the debate is increasingly focusing on Africa’s leadership as good explanation for its poverty and underdevelopment. This paper argues that the current poverty and underdevelopment of Africa have much to do with enabling conditions created by African leaders and proposes that addressing this requires Africans to go back to pre-colonial history where they can tap good lessons rather than continuing importing Western based models which may not necessarily fit into Africa’s unique characteristics.
At the Mid of Polarity: Rethinking Medium Farms as Solution to Vulnerability for Small-scale Farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa
(Alanya Academic Review Journal, 2018-02) Mgaya, Edward
Strategies to increase agricultural productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa have mostly been thought to occur through one of the two predominant pathways: large-scale commercial production or intensification of small holder plots. Considerable efforts have been made to further each of these two strategies. It is clear, therefore, that the efforts to go beyond such polarized academic debate on the key challenges to farm size in relation to food productivity is still wanting. Such polarization of the debate presents the obvious problem of limiting solutions by obscuring those that fall in the middle. It is in such a context that the argument for the expansion of medium-scale farming is lost. This article brings alive the lost in the debate about the expansion of medium scale farmers. Arguing from transitional model, the article reimagine medium farms as solution to vulnerability of small scale farmers and their food productivity.
Development Implications of Labour Migration for Origin Societies: The Case of Manamba of Njombe District, 1900-1960s’
(Tanzania Zamani Journal, 2021) Mgaya, Edward
For decades, labour migration scholarship in Africa has focused on social-economic and political problems instigated by colonial labour migration in the origin societies. Very little is available regarding migrants’ transformational agency. This paper discusses the role that migrant labourers (manamba) played in economic development in the Njombe district, Tanzania from 1900 to the 1960s. The paper argues that, apart from the apparent complications, labour migration also facilitated the development of the district in some ways depending on variations in the economic environment of the migrants’ homes and the areas they worked. Deriving from primary and secondary evidence the paper links labour migrants to cash crop production, agricultural innovations and entrepreneurial activities. It concludes that using the knowledge, experience and capital the migrants got in various workplaces, added with creativity, the labour migrants contributed considerably to the wider transformational process of bringing economic development to their places of origin.
Forest and Forestry in Tanzania: Changes and Continuities in Policies and Practices From Colonial Times to the Present
(Geographical Association of Tanzania, 2015-11) Mgaya, Edward
The forest sector has a very important role to play in Tanzania’s economy. Although, in absolute terms, their contribution to total gross domestic product (GDP) is relatively low, the country’s forests contain such a high level of resources that make Tanzania one of the richest and most biodiverse countries. Due to such importance, forestry has variably featured in Tanzanian policies from colonial time to the present. This paper, therefore, examines such policies relating to forests and forestry in Tanzania from the colonial to recent times. It argues that, although there has been a change in the approach from a preservationist approach in the colonial and postcolonial period towards a managerial/win-win approach in the current forest conservation, there is a resurgence of the preservationist tendency in the focus on managing forest solely to increase carbon stocks. Drawing evidences from various existing policy documents and other literature, this paper concludes that forestry policies have been, and continue to reveal a notable protectionist and reservationist propensity while also expecting revenues from them through various forest products. These policies, to a greater extent, have throughout resulted into conflicts between both colonial and post-colonial states and local population who demands free access to the forest resources for their survival.
The Search for ‘Her story’: Women in the Narratives of African Migratory History
(American Research Institute for Policy Development, 2015-06) Mgaya, Edward
Gender has become a category of concern for many historians of labour migration in contemporary scholarships. This article notes some of the factors which made it possible for historians to turn to questions of gender. It is a modest attempt to survey the historiography of labour migration and gender as it developed in the late 20th Century and explore some current directions in this scholarship showing how African historians have gained a more understanding of African migration through the examination of women migration in particular. In short, the article examines the pace through which women have been integrated into the narratives of African migratory history. In this article I argue that although African women were for centuries viewed as non-labour migrants, the historiography of labour migration from the late twentieth century reveals women as both national and international labour migrants. This came as a challenge to the then dominant paradigms which were silent on women issues.

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