Waves and legacies: the making of an investment frontier in Niassa, Mozambique
The literature on land-use frontiers has overwhelmingly focused on active frontiers of expansion. We focus on an emerging frontier. We studied the decisions, narratives, and practices of the actors driving land-use change in Niassa, Mozambique. Based on ethnographic research carried out between earl...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Resilience Alliance
2022-03-01
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| Series: | Ecology and Society |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol27/iss1/art40/ |
| _version_ | 1818669576127250432 |
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| author | Angela Kronenburg García Patrick Meyfroidt Dilini Abeygunawardane Almeida A. Sitoe |
| author_facet | Angela Kronenburg García Patrick Meyfroidt Dilini Abeygunawardane Almeida A. Sitoe |
| author_sort | Angela Kronenburg García |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The literature on land-use frontiers has overwhelmingly focused on active frontiers of expansion. We focus on an emerging frontier. We studied the decisions, narratives, and practices of the actors driving land-use change in Niassa, Mozambique. Based on ethnographic research carried out between early 2017 and late 2018 among investors engaged in commercial agriculture and plantation forestry, we show how successive waves of actors with different backgrounds, motives, and business practices arrived in Niassa and attempted to establish farms or plantations yet repeatedly failed and left, or remained but continued to struggle. We show how even though waves come and go, they do leave sediments behind, legacies that over time add up to overcome the various constraints that investors face and gradually form the conditions for a frontier to emerge. We argue that the build-up of these legacies, particularly after the end of the civil war in 1992, has given rise to a new wave, which is qualitatively different from the previous ones in the sense that the actors did not arrive from elsewhere but were already present in Niassa. This wave thus emerges from within the region, building on the legacies of previous waves, indicating that over time endogenous processes may replace externally driven waves. We contribute to frontier theory by arguing that waves and legacies shape emerging frontiers through their dynamic interaction. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-17T06:54:24Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-cc6af25812894b0a9ef7415176b49a43 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1708-3087 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-17T06:54:24Z |
| publishDate | 2022-03-01 |
| publisher | Resilience Alliance |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Ecology and Society |
| spelling | doaj.art-cc6af25812894b0a9ef7415176b49a432022-12-21T21:59:29ZengResilience AllianceEcology and Society1708-30872022-03-012714010.5751/ES-13159-27014013159Waves and legacies: the making of an investment frontier in Niassa, MozambiqueAngela Kronenburg García0Patrick Meyfroidt1Dilini Abeygunawardane2Almeida A. Sitoe3Earth and Life Institute, UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, BelgiumEarth and Life Institute, UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, BelgiumEarth and Life Institute, UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, BelgiumFaculty of Agronomy and Forestry, Eduardo Mondlane University, Maputo, MozambiqueThe literature on land-use frontiers has overwhelmingly focused on active frontiers of expansion. We focus on an emerging frontier. We studied the decisions, narratives, and practices of the actors driving land-use change in Niassa, Mozambique. Based on ethnographic research carried out between early 2017 and late 2018 among investors engaged in commercial agriculture and plantation forestry, we show how successive waves of actors with different backgrounds, motives, and business practices arrived in Niassa and attempted to establish farms or plantations yet repeatedly failed and left, or remained but continued to struggle. We show how even though waves come and go, they do leave sediments behind, legacies that over time add up to overcome the various constraints that investors face and gradually form the conditions for a frontier to emerge. We argue that the build-up of these legacies, particularly after the end of the civil war in 1992, has given rise to a new wave, which is qualitatively different from the previous ones in the sense that the actors did not arrive from elsewhere but were already present in Niassa. This wave thus emerges from within the region, building on the legacies of previous waves, indicating that over time endogenous processes may replace externally driven waves. We contribute to frontier theory by arguing that waves and legacies shape emerging frontiers through their dynamic interaction.https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol27/iss1/art40/ethnography of investorsfrontier emergenceland-use changeland-use investmentmozambiqueniassa |
| spellingShingle | Angela Kronenburg García Patrick Meyfroidt Dilini Abeygunawardane Almeida A. Sitoe Waves and legacies: the making of an investment frontier in Niassa, Mozambique Ecology and Society ethnography of investors frontier emergence land-use change land-use investment mozambique niassa |
| title | Waves and legacies: the making of an investment frontier in Niassa, Mozambique |
| title_full | Waves and legacies: the making of an investment frontier in Niassa, Mozambique |
| title_fullStr | Waves and legacies: the making of an investment frontier in Niassa, Mozambique |
| title_full_unstemmed | Waves and legacies: the making of an investment frontier in Niassa, Mozambique |
| title_short | Waves and legacies: the making of an investment frontier in Niassa, Mozambique |
| title_sort | waves and legacies the making of an investment frontier in niassa mozambique |
| topic | ethnography of investors frontier emergence land-use change land-use investment mozambique niassa |
| url | https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol27/iss1/art40/ |
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