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On Broker Exploitation and Violence: From Madalali to Cartel Bosses in the Food Aid Resale Economy of Tanzanian Refugee Camps

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  • Clayton Boeyink

Abstract

It is a poorly kept humanitarian secret that wherever food aid is given, it is also sold, as recipients seek to vary their diets to include culturally desired food, start businesses, or deal with economic shocks. This holds true in Nyarugusu refugee camp in Tanzania, the site of this research. While this article addresses the supply side of the World Food Programme resale system, its main focus is the demand side, providing one of the first in‐depth studies on what happens after the sale. Engaging with the political and development anthropology literature on brokers, the author introduces the intermediaries who make up this system, including low‐level madalali brokers and refugee and Tanzanian ‘bosses’. There is agreement within brokerage research of the moral ‘ambiguity’ or ‘ambivalence’ of these figures, a nebulous quality that is heightened by the seemingly innumerable different types of brokers. This article contends that a Marxian conceptualization of social class, beyond Bourdieu's widely applied social capital theory, is productive in understanding the threat of violence that a small cartel of bosses has set up in collusion with Tanzanian police to maintain the exploitative food aid resale pyramid. Members of this elite class are, in turn, ‘products and producers’ of a structurally violent encampment and aid system.

Suggested Citation

  • Clayton Boeyink, 2022. "On Broker Exploitation and Violence: From Madalali to Cartel Bosses in the Food Aid Resale Economy of Tanzanian Refugee Camps," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 53(5), pages 962-986, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:devchg:v:53:y:2022:i:5:p:962-986
    DOI: 10.1111/dech.12697
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Marx, Karl, 1867. "Capital: A Critique of Political Economy (I): The Process of Capitalist Production," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, volume 1, number marx1867.
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