National Park Initiatives for Whose Good?: Indigenous Maasai Displacement in the Ngorongoro District of Northern Tanzania
Year: 2025
Type: dissertation
Abstract: State land grabs and restricted access for conservation initiatives today continue to be framed as one of ecological stewardship while displacing Maasai and other indigenous groups in the process. This framing is a form of justified resource control with the aim of capital development rather than the preservation of the resources themselves. Drawing from the twelve semi-structured, in-depth interviews with Northern Tanzanian Maasai community members conducted between December 2024 - January 2025, this article examines how Tanzanian state land conservation initiatives reflect global capitalist and post-colonial state relations evidenced in accumulation by dispossession. Three themes are identified which helped understand and synthesize the Maasai’s unique displacement yet broader position within global processes: 1. The Maasai’s deep relationship to the land, 2. The Maasai’s interpretation of who is responsible for their displacement, and 3. Maasai Global Resistance. These under researched firsthand experiences contribute to critical debates on the state’s role of conservation and the role of capital accumulation in the postcolonial state’s development. Using both a materialist and postcolonial theoretical framework, Maasai interpretation of state enacted displacement could be understood as global capital accumulation and post-colonial state control. Displacement and its threats will continue the demands of the Maasai are overlooked by capitalist interests.
Author: Rivera, Ainsly
Language: English
Subfield: Global and Planetary Change
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7108077088
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