Customary Tenure, Legal Pluralism, and the Politics of Land Rights in Tanzania: Historical and Contemporary Dynamics of Farmer–Pastoralist Conflicts in Morogoro Region, 1890s–2015

Abstract

Farmer–pastoralist conflicts in Tanzania have intensified over the past decades, often portrayed as struggles over scarce land and environmental degradation. Yet such accounts insufficiently explain how legal pluralism, shifting land tenure regimes, and political power relations shape access to and control over land. Drawing on a historical synthesis of archival materials, oral testimonies, colonial administrative documents, and contemporary land laws, grounded in Mtenga’s historical thesis on Morogoro Region (1890s–2015). This study examines how customary tenure systems, statutory reforms, and political decisions have produced overlapping, contested, and unequal land rights in Kilosa and Mvomero districts. The study traces the evolution of land governance from pre-colonial tenure anchored in kinship and communal authority, through German and British colonial land ordinances that subordinated customary tenure to state authority, to post-colonial ujamaa villagisation, socialist parastatals, structural adjustment policies, and contemporary commercialisation of land. The findings illustrate that farmer–pastoralist conflicts are less a product of absolute land scarcity and more a manifestation of economic scarcity, political favouritism, erosion of customary authority, and unequal enforcement of land laws. The coexistence of statutory laws (e.g., Land Acts of 1999), customary tenure, village by-laws, and informal arrangements has produced deep legal ambiguity and enabled dispossession through bureaucratic manipulation and elite capture. The study advances a political-legal perspective, arguing that legal pluralism, rather than resolving tenure insecurity, has entrenched overlapping land claims that fuel recurrent conflict. It contributes to contemporary debates on land governance in Africa by demonstrating how historical processes continue to structure present-day contestations. Policy recommendations emphasise harmonisation of land laws, protection of customary tenure, accountability in land allocation, conflict-sensitive land use planning, and recognition of pastoral mobility as a legitimate land use system.