Agrarian Movements in the Neoliberal Era: : The Case of MVIWATA in Tanzania

This article explores the emergence and growing significance of the National Network of Small-scale Farmers Groups in Tanzania (Mtandao wa Vikundi vya Wakulima Tanzania, MVIWATA), a national peasant organization established in Tanzania in 1993. The article seeks to understand political agency in the current phase of neoliberal restructuring and state authoritarianism, not by romanticizing or homogenizing the movement, but by analyzing the internal social (class) idiosyncrasies, dynamics, discourses and practices, as well as the relationship with NGOs and the state. Anchoring the study in the changing agrarian political economy, it is argued that MVIWATA is crossed by several contradictions and tensions, which have bifurcated the organization along two competing currents, one more ‘politically oriented’ and the other more ‘project focused’. Whether the movement will be able to absorb the pressures from donors and re-orient them or become increasingly NGO-ized remains an open question